


The Wind Beneath Their Wings

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Canon Asexual Character, Comfort, Dissociation, Even More Tender Wing Grooming, Except Bertie, Grizzop Stims Because I Say So, Multi, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Other, Queerplatonic relationship, Rome Happens, Soulmate AU, Spoilers For The Season Thus Far, Wing Grooming, Wingfic, characters and relationships to be added in later chapters, molting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23377576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: In a world where a small percentage of people are born with wings, and out of those only a few ever achieve flight, somehow six people defy all the odds.
Relationships: Azu/Sasha Racket/Celiquillithon "Cel" Sidebottom, Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam & Celiquillithon "Cel" Sidebottom, Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam & Sasha Racket, Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam/Oscar Wilde, Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam/Vesseek, Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan & Azu, Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan/Zolf Smith, Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 67
Kudos: 94





	1. Sasha

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kristsune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristsune/gifts).



> For Kristsune, for being a terrible enabler and an excellent rubber duck, who now gets greeted in the mornings with me sliding into their Tumblr messenger and going, "What if it was a soulmate AU where people can't fly until after one of their soulmates touches their wings, but no one *knows* that's how it works?"
> 
> And yes, for the record I totally believe in multiple soulmates and multiple *types* of soulmates.

Sasha Racket was born down in Other London with the wings of a bat, and never once told that she might be able to fly.

Even if she had been told, even if she had believed it, even if flight was possible, where would she have gone? The ceilings in Other London only rise so high. As it was, between the shops and stalls and the press of people, there’s barely enough space for her to stretch her wings. So she does not dream of flight, not like other children born with wings would have done. Her wings are good for slowing her falls from high places, for folding around herself so she can blend more completely into the shadows, for wrapping herself tightly in for warmth and for comfort, though she would never admit to the last, not even at the point of a dagger.

“Can I touch them?”

Sasha’s throw of the dice goes wild, both of her lucky (weighted) red dice hitting the back of the butcher shop and bouncing off so hard that it goes clattering down into a side alley. Sasha swears and turns to look at Brock so fast that he flinches. “What?”

“Your wings. I just— they look like they feel neat, that’s all.” The tips of Brock’s ears flush, a clear sign that he’s embarrassed. “Never mind. I’ll just, I’ll go get your dice for you!” He scrabbles to his feet and then he’s off down the alley, not nearly as quick or as quietly as Sasha would have done.

Sasha sighs and shifts her shoulders, her wings tucked around her like a cloak. She doesn’t like being touched very much, likes it even less when it comes without warning. Brock knows that, has seen how very still Sasha goes when Barrett pats her on the shoulder after a job well done. But Brock isn’t Barrett. He’s her cousin, but more importantly he’s her best mate, and at least he asked first instead of just making a grab for them.

When Brock comes back from the alley and drops the dice back in Sasha’s hand, she simply holds them for a second, frowning at them before nodding her head stiffly.

“Right,” she says, not looking up at Brock. “You can touch them.”

“Really?”

Sasha sees Brock’s hand move out of the corner of her eye and puts up a hand to stop him. “You can touch them, but only for like, five seconds. And don’t move your hand or anything. I’m not a rat you can pet.”

“You can’t pet rats,” Brock insists. “They’re too fast, and they bite.”

“You’re just too slow to catch them,” Sasha says. “And they don’t bite _me_. Rats like _me._ ”

Brock grumbles something and puts a hand on her wing while Sasha holds very still and counts the seconds in her head.

“It didn’t feel _magic_ or anything,” Sasha will tell Cel years later, when the half-elf is trying to gather evidence for their theory about why all the members of the L.O.L.O.M.G can fly. “His hand was warm, but that was it. And like, we were related, can you even be a soulmate with someone in your own family? If soulmates even exist, which I’m still not convinced they do.”

Cel shrugs one shoulder as they take notes. “No one’s proven that soulmates _don’t_ exist,” Cel says. “Though I don’t think many studies have been done on the subject.” They get a far away look in their eyes. “How _would_ one measure the bonds between people? Maybe a potion of True-Sight mixed with…”

“And other people touched my wings before I learned I could fly,” Sasha says over Cel as they continue speaking. “People used to brush against them all the time in London and Other London if I wasn’t able to dodge them. Pretty sure Zolf touched them at least once while healing me up, and both Hamid and Bi Ming Gusset had hugged me by that point. And…” Sasha hunches her shoulders, her wings tightening around herself. The person she was thinking of couldn’t _possibly_ be her soulmate even if that was a thing, but the memory was there regardless. “And…”

———

There were few things Sasha liked about Upper London. The food was quite good, though it was lacking in eels. Her bed was quite nice, and all hers, she didn’t have to fight anyone for it. But even the nice things had an edge to them up here, even a nice cage was still a cage.

What she _didn’t_ like about Upper London could have probably filled a book, if Sasha was more inclined towards writing. There were so many _people_ for one, not just normal regular folks like her, but a lot of _posh_ people who gave her _looks_ when she walked by, which only made her more wary of crowds and being seen. She wasn’t even allowed to _rob_ any of them either, which was really confusing. She had thought that when Barrett had given her to Rakefine (sold her really, Barrett didn’t do anything without an exchange of money or favors) that she would be doing the same sorts of things she’d been doing in Other London, stabbing and stealing or just good old fashioned threatening. She was _good_ at those things. Instead she had tutors that were trying to teach her how to speak all posh, and to walk ‘like a lady,’ whatever _that_ even meant. And then there were the _clothes._

It’s not that Sasha doesn’t like silk. She likes silk just fine on _other_ people, where it’s an indicator of just how wealthy they might be. What she doesn’t like it on is _herself_. It’s too slippery against her skin, not as heavy as wool cloth or leather, less solid, less _real_. She might as well not be wearing _anything._ At least it’s not too tight, she can probably hide a couple of daggers in…

“Sasha.” Eldarion says her name the way she always does, in that tone of disappointment that makes Sasha want to fight and makes her feel small all at once. “Sasha, head up please. And stand still.”

“It’s the shoes,” Sasha protests, not lifting her head. “The heels are too high. I don’t know how anyone can stand in these things, let alone walk.”

“ _I_ manage it quite well,” Eldarion says. “And I had assumed that since you often boast of your acrobatic prowess, a simple two-inch heel wouldn’t unbalance you. Was I wrong then?”

Sasha grits her teeth, her pride wounded. “No,” she growls.

“Good. Now, head _up_ please, and don’t hunch over like that. We need to judge the fit of this dress. The party you’re to attend is only a few weeks away.”

Sasha straightens, slowly dragging her head up until she’s looking in the mirror. Her reflection stares back at her, revealing hair that’s not short enough (because short hair on women is not the current _fashion_ ) and a dress of green silk that would never stop a dagger coming at her, and shoes that she can’t _run_ in. She watches in the mirror as Eldarion circles around her, frowning. Even frowning she looks beautiful and elegant, because of course she does.

“Hmmmmm.” Eldarion pauses behind Sasha and reaches out, placing a graceful hand on one of Sasha’s wings. “We’re going to have to do something about this.”

Sasha stares into the mirror, a high pitched whine filling her ears as Eldarion’s lips keep moving, as her fingers go strange and tingly. When someone or something is causing Barrett trouble, he says the same thing, usually before the bloodshed begins. _We’re going to have to do something about this._ He had said that after the second time she had tried to run away, right before he had put the ring on her finger, the ring that wouldn’t come off. Eldarion had said it after touching her wings. Sasha wonders, distantly, how it’s going to happen. Will they drug her and cut them off of her while she’s unconscious? Or maybe there’s some sort of magic that can remove them. Maybe Sasha will just wake up and her wings will just be gone, just something else that’s been taken from her.

(Years later, in Rome where the sun burns and the shadows freeze and nothing good happens, Sasha will bring up that moment to Eldarion, will watch shock and surprise cross the woman’s face as she swears that all she had meant at the time was that she would have needed to get Sasha a charm of illusion an concealment to hide her wings. It doesn’t make Sasha any less suspicious of her.)

“Sasha?” Eldarion’s voice manages to cut into her thoughts. “Are you all right? You’ve gone pale. And you’re sweating. Do you have a fever?” Eldarion puts a hand against Sasha’s forehead, but Sasha doesn’t feel it, only knows it’s happening because she can see it in the mirror.

“I don’t feel well,” Sasha watches her own reflection say. The words come out flat but clear, no trace of emotion to be heard. “I think I need to lie down.”

Sasha doesn’t remember changing out of her dress or leaving the room. One moment she’s staring at her own reflection, the next she’s in her own room, wearing regular, comfortable clothes and staring up at the night sky, gripping the edges of her small window frame hard enough that her fingers hurt.

Sasha has a hard time looking at the sky during the day, when it’s so bright and vast and _everywhere_. She doesn’t get how birds can be flying around up there all the time, when there’s nothing solid to hide behind. The night sky though, that’s easier, that’s darkness and dim lights just like Other London, the night sky is practically home. Not that Other London is home anymore. Not that Upper London is either, really.

Sasha wraps her wings a little tighter around herself as she drags her eyes away from the sky, focuses her gaze a little lower. She’s run away a few times now, for all the good it’s done her, and every time they put her in a higher bedroom, further away from convenient trees and downspouts that she could climb down. This time her bedroom is even on a side of the estate where the nearest roof is not only very far away, but also very far below her. She’s used her wings to help slow her fall from high places before, and if the wind is favorable she can glide a fair distance, but if the wind or her wings fail her, well, the street is a very long way below, and very hard.

“No risk no reward, right?” Sasha mutters to herself. “I mean, it’s stay and get your wings cut off or take your chances and maybe wind up dead, and we’re used to ‘maybe winding up dead’ as being an option, so really nothing’s changed there.” She goes to open the window, then swears when it only opens about an inch or two before stopping.

“Of course,” Sasha mutters. “Of course. Surprised they gave me windows that open at all really.” She starts checking the window frame, studying it closely. If it’s magic then she’s out of luck, because if they’ve taken the time to magic the window to only open so far, they’ve probably magicked the glass to be unbreakable too, though that won’t stop her from trying. But if it’s something more mundane like….

The mechanism preventing the window from opening is almost insultingly simple for someone who has spent as much time disarming traps and picking locks as Sasha has. Nothing with wires and springs is safe from her, and in a moment she has the window open and she’s crouching on the sill, doing her own, instinctual internal maths for how far she’ll have to glide, the best angle to hit the roof at. She visualizes it all in her mind, going through it once, then again. The third time, the third time is when she leaps.

The wind is kind to her, perhaps too kind, for the currents hold her aloft for longer than she’d anticipated, long enough that the muscles in her wings and back start to ache and burn. She should have stretched. Hells, maybe she should have been exercising her wings all this time too, the same way she worked at keeping all her other joints so flexible. Something to think about if she lives past this, because now the wind is dying and what had been a very slow flight is turning into a very fast one—

Sasha snaps her wings closed a second before she hits the roof, managing to turn her fall into a roll just in time. She mentally celebrates for a moment as she comes up from the roll into a run, flinging herself off the next roof and opening her wings to slow her fall onto the ground, which she hits at a stumbling run, wincing as something in her left ankle protests her less than perfect landing.

Sasha keeps on running, wings once more folded around herself. Magic ring or no, it always takes a while for Barrett’s people to start hunting her down. Maybe this time she can find someone who knows about magic jewelry that can get this damn ring off her. And if not, well, part of a finger is a small price to pay for freedom.

———

The first time Sasha flies, she’s in the middle of a storm.

Being on a boat is literally the most fun Sasha has had in her entire life. Maybe fun is the wrong word to use for being on a boat that’s being tossed around during a storm, but the constant dip and swell of the waves is _exciting_ in a way Sasha has never experienced before. She knows Hamid isn’t enjoying himself, he’d gotten seasick pretty quickly and from the sparkles of his prestidigitated vomit she can see that he was still being sick. Zolf isn’t having a good time either, but this is a religious thing for him, so it not being fun is built into it, she supposes. Still, she’s having a great time, even as the wind starts picking up even more.

Zolf’s busy keeping the boat upright, so Sasha is the one who notices that Hamid is damn close to getting blown away, the edges of his brass colored wings fluttering like a cape in the wind as he clings desperately to the side of the boat. She grabs a length of rope with one hand, keeping the other firmly on the mast, inching her way along, timing her steps as the boat rocks.

“I’m coming Hamid, just hang on!” Sasha calls out, and that’s the last thing she says before they reach the crest of a wave and the wind hits her full force. Her wings, wrapped tightly around her but not tight enough, snap open when the wind catches them and then she’s gone, tumbling through the air, sky and sea spinning around her.

Sasha tries desperately to close her wings again, knowing that if she does she’ll fall into the water, but at least she won’t be moving as quickly away from the boat as she’s doing now. She feels herself flap in panic instead, just like when she had been a kid, before she had learned how to glide properly. Flapping hadn’t gotten her anywhere back then.

It’s getting her somewhere now.

The world stops spinning, and Sasha finds herself upright, sea churning below and clouds roiling above her, wings flapping nearly as fast as her own pounding heart and she’s still in the air, heading towards the boat, _moving against the wind._

 _I can’t be flying_ , Sasha thinks as she struggles to move forward, flapping even harder. She can _just_ make out the boat through the wind and the rain. _No one else I know who has wings can fly, not Hamid or Bertie, and Zolf can’t even_ ** _move_** _his, so why can I all of a sudden—_

Sasha’s introspection is cut short when the wind changes direction at the same time a wave rises up to meet her and she’s slammed into the water, all thoughts of the hows and whys of flight replaced with the terror of trying to swim, of seeing Zolf brave the water to rescue her, his wings dragging behind him nearly the same color as sea foam.Then there’s righting the boat, tipped over in the storm, then rowing rowing rowing, a giant metallic tentacle, followed by even _faster_ rowing. By the time she staggers out of the boat and onto the beach, onto solid ground that doesn’t move and sway under her feet, her only thought is of her aching arms, and of sleep.

Sasha doesn’t remember passing out in the sand, but she wakes up to find that she’s under a sort of improvised shelter, a driftwood campfire smoldering a safe distance away, Zolf and Hamid both curled up near each other, sleeping soundly. She finds herself glad that she’s here with them, even though she could have drowned out there on the sea, even though they all could have. They made it out all right, and that’s what matters.

The rain has stopped, though the sky above is still gray with clouds as Sasha stands up, wincing as her whole body protests things like movement. She pokes at one of the smoldering bits of driftwood with a dagger before adding a bit more fuel to the fire, then stretches her aching arms, followed by her wings. Her wings. Right.

“It could have just been a fluke,” Sasha mutters quietly as she backs away from the fire, moving a bit further down the beach. “Just some trick of the wind currents or something.” But there is barely a breeze now, and Zolf and Hamid are asleep, so they won’t see her possible failure. If nothing happens, then nothing happens. She finds a clear spot on the beach, away from trees and rocks, and does her usual routine of stretches, legs and arms and wings, before taking a deep breath. “Right. Okay. Just—“

Sasha flaps her wings a little harder than she means to, spurred on by nerves, and nearly does a little shriek as she launches herself ten feet into the air. She’s _so_ surprised that she immediately forgets to flap, tumbling to the ground a second later. For a moment she just crouches in the sand, heart racing, and then she nods her head as she stands back up.

Her next try is better, and minutes later she finds herself about thirty feet up in the air doing something that could probably be called hovering, even if it’s a bit wobbly. The breeze that she had felt down below is stronger up here, but she’s long been used to gliding on air currents. She flaps harder, tilting her body one way, feeling her direction change, and she experiments with changing the angle of her wings, learning very quickly what will send her soaring upward and what will cause her to swoop towards the sand. She’s a bit clumsy at it, and some of her experiments with diving end with her hitting the sand, or on a few occasions the surf, but that doesn’t stop her from trying, doesn’t stop the excited, exhilarating feeling in her chest. It reminds her of when she had first been learning how to wall jump, in the days when she’d ended up with more bruises and scrapes than visible progress, or her first early, laughable attempts at knife throwing. Flying is just another skill now, to be trained like any other.

She’s just finished doing a less than graceful super wobbly loop when she hears someone applauding from down below. Immediately she falters, diving towards the sand, and only just manages to pull up just in time, coming to a running, stumbling halt in front of Hamid, who’s grinning at her with something like awe in his eyes.

“Sasha, that was _amazing_ ,” Hamid says, and Sasha immediately ducks her head to hide her blush at the praise, brushing some sand out of her hair.

“I mean, it wasn’t bad for like, my first day,” she says, and she can’t seem to hide the smile that’s spread itself across her face. Impulsively, she reaches out and tugs at Hamid’s wrist, flapping her wings just enough that she rises slightly in the air. “Maybe you can fly too now! I mean, I don’t know why _I_ can fly all of a sudden, panicked flapping never got me anywhere before. Is this a magic thing? Like a spell? Is this going to wear off?”

Hamid shakes his head. “I cast detect magic while I was watching you, and your wings didn’t glow or anything, so it’s not a spell. There are _stories_ about people with wings suddenly developing the power to fly, usually in dangerous situations, but there’s also stories of people who get hurt trying, or worse. I mean….” Hamidgives a nervous little laugh. “I was lucky that all I broke was my leg when I tried. When you’re a kid you don’t think about that kind of thing.”

“I mean, you could try again,” Sasha says. She doesn’t know why she wants Hamid to try so bad. Maybe she just wants someone else to share this with. “I mean, you don’t _have_ to. I’m the last person to make someone do something they don’t want.”

Hamid shifts his wings, looking like he’s about to say something, and then he’s looking past her, behind her. When Sasha turns her head she sees Zolf, sees sorrow and longing in his expression for just a moment before it vanishes as he forces himself to smile. He walks up to the two of them, the tips of his wings dragging slightly in the sand.

“Congratulations,” Zolf says as Sasha lets go of Hamid and gently lands. He sounds like he means it, but Sasha still feels awkward when she turns to face him.

“Thanks,” Sasha mumbles. “I’m sorry.” She doesn’t mean to say it, but it slips out anyway and she feels her shoulders start to hunch up towards her ears as she folds her wings around herself. Thanks to Zolf’s accident, he can’t move his wings at all. Even the chance of flight will always be beyond him, and here she was showing off.

“Don’t.” Zolf puts out a hand and Sasha doesn’t flinch, lets it rest on her shoulder. “Don’t do that. Don’t ground yourself because of me. I’m happy for you. Really.”

Sasha lets her eyes flick up to Zolf’s face. He still looks sad, but he also looks like he means what he’s saying, so Sasha will take him at his word.

“And I mean,” Zolf says, and now his smile solidifies into something that looks more true. “Just think about the look on Bertie’s face when he sees that you can fly and he _can’t_.”

“Zolf!” Hamid sounds indignant, but he’s hiding a smile behind his hand. “That’s not—“ the rest of the sentence dissolves into giggling, and Sasha finds herself smiling when Zolf joins in as well with his quiet chuckles.

“Oh I’m going to fly _circles_ around him,” Sasha promises as they start walking up the beach together. “Always talking about how he’s _literally_ going to rise above the common folk someday.” She does a little hop and a flap just thinking about it, wondering how much flying practice she can get in before meeting up in Calais.


	2. Hamid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First falls, first feelings, and first flights.

“Can you fly?”

The gargoyle shaped like a sphinx, whose name sounds like rocks being ground into sand, slowly blinks at Hamid, who waits patiently for a reply. He often sits and talks to the gargoyles on the roof of his parent’s estate, and he’s used to their slow way of speaking. So he waits, gently tugging on the earring he’s been wearing for as long as he can remember, been wearing since right after he was born, according to his mother. The little gold earring with its purple stone is a family heirloom, and his parents often admonish him for touching it, so he only does so when he’s not in their presence.

The sphinx shaped gargoyle slowly shifts their wings, the faint scraping sound drawing Hamid’s attention.

“No,” the gargoyle says.

Hamid waits for a moment or two before asking another question, just in case the gargoyle has something else to add. “Does it make you sad?”

Hamid stretches his own wings as he waits for an answer, turning his head so he can see the rising sun shining off the brilliant turquoise feathers. They’re the same color as the kingfishers he’s seen down by the river, the same as his eldest sister Aziza’s own wings. That had made him happy when he was younger, that he had wings that looked his sister’s, but now… something’s different now.

“No,” the gargoyle says, and Hamid sighs and folds his wings, shifting his shoulders in an attempt to get them to settle properly. The feathers rustle gently as they always do, lay perfectly against his back the same as ever, so he doesn’t know why lately he’s gotten it into his head that they should feel different somehow.

“That’s good,” Hamid says. “That you’re not sad about it, I mean.” He looks up at the sky, where a few clouds are drifting by. “I… I don’t feel _sad_ , exactly. Sometimes I have these dreams where I’m flying though. I’m flying and it’s the best thing in the world, and I’m _big_ and _powerful_ and then…” He looks down at his hands, at how small they seem. He’s only thirteen years old, his growth spurt ages away. “I wake up and I just feel _weird_ , like my skin’s too tight and my insides feel all hot and it’s like my body’s the wrong shape or something.” Just talking about it makes him rub at his arms and shift his wings again, trying to dispel the hot, prickly feeling.

“I wish Aziza was here,” Hamid says quietly. She’s gone abroad to study music, and the estate is quieter for the absence of her singing. “Maybe she had weird flying dreams when she was my age too. I could write her a letter, but… it just seems like a silly thing to ask about.” He doesn’t tell the gargoyle that he had tried to talk to his mother about how his dreams made him feel, and how that had somehow lead to a dry, terribly embarrassing lecture from his father about growing up and bodily changes. Instead he sighs and gets up, stretching both his arms and his wings. Breakfast should be ready soon, he should really go back inside.

“Thank you for talking with me,” Hamid says to the gargoyle, polite as always, and heads across the roof, towards the hatch and the ladder that lead back down into the house proper. He’s halfway there when the feeling flares up inside him again, the one from his dreams, the heat in his blood as warm as the sun on his skin. He looks back across the roof, at the horizon, and then he’s running towards the edge, wings outstretched, as certain and sure as only a child can be. He’s tried to fly from high places before, stairways and rocks and tall trees, and it’s never worked. But this time, _this_ time when he jumps, the sky is going to catch him, he _knows_ it. His wings will bear his weight and he will _soar_ …

There’s a moment before gravity takes him where he thinks it worked, a glorious second where he has just enough time to smile before he falls. He hears the sound of grinding stone, one of the gargoyles on the roof reaching out too late to catch him, and then he’s falling, wings flapping frantically, and there’s no time to scream before he lands in the courtyard below. He _feels_ his leg break more than he hears it, the shock of the snap almost drowning out the sense of betrayal he feels at his own body, at his wings, at the dreams that sang in his blood and lead him to this. It’s not only physical pain that causes him to begin to cry.

———

“I didn’t try to fly again after that,” Hamid tells Cel. “Not on purpose anyway. Not until Paris.”

Cel winces and nods, patting Hamid on the arm before making a few notes in one of their many beaten up notebooks. “Ow, yeah, that’s a really common narrative among other people I’ve talked to. People try to fly when they’re kids and they end up getting hurt and don’t try again, and it’s only by accident they find out they _can_ fly, usually in some sort of life or death situation.” Cel twirls their pen in between their fingers. “When I was younger I had a theory that maybe the ability to fly could be unlocked by causing an increased adrenal response in a subject during puberty, but no matter how many things I hurled myself of off, nothing changed. Well, besides getting a few new scars,” they say with a wave of their hand. “But that’s always happening.”

“Maybe it has something to do with fear?” Hamid asks. “I mean, there’s a big difference between throwing yourself off something on purpose and having it happen to you unexpectedly.” He thinks of tentacles grabbing on to him in the dark, of the way Sasha’s voice had echoed off the catacomb walls.

“If it was a simple fear response, I would have been flying ages and ages ago,” Cel says. “I mean, I have _stories._ And it doesn’t explain all the winged goblins and kobolds who seem to get flight _really_ young. I mean, they have higher birthrates which means more winged births to begin with, but the percentage of those that are able to fly still seems out of proportion to….” They trail off. “I was going to ask you something.”

“Was it about my wings?” He knows that it’s possible that whatever Cel wanted to ask him might only be tangentially related to what they had just been talking about, or not even related at all in any way that Hamid would be able see, but would make perfect sense to Cel. Cel often leapt from thought to thought like lightning leapt through clouds. He reaches for the teacup in front of him and takes a sip as Cel taps their pen against their teeth.

“No….wait…yes.” Cel flips through their notebook, running a finger down the page. “Yes, that’s what it was. Got a little sidetracked there. I _did_ hear correctly, you had different wings when you were a kid?” They flutter their iridescent dragonfly wings, which make a sound like rustling paper. Yesterday their wings had been feathered, white with black on the secondary feathers like those of the red-crowned crane. Tomorrow they’d be something completely different. “I mean, _I_ have different wings then I did when I was a younger, but that’s because of that _very_ interesting mutagen reaction I told all of you about.”

“Ah.” Hamid shifts slightly, taking comfort in the weight of his draconic brass wings as they settle around his shoulders like a cloak or a hug, similar to Sasha’s own bat wings. “I did. At least, I sort of did. It’s… “ Hamid reaches up and tugs at the earring in his ear, the old nervous habit having never really left him. It’s a similar earring to the one he had worn as a child, but the stone glimmers green instead of purple. The magic contained within isn’t active at the moment, it’s a spell he uses only rarely now. “I was going to say it’s complicated, but really, it’s very simple.”

———

Hamid sits alone in his flat in London, his father’s letter clutched in hands that tremble and shake. He’s lost track of how many times he’s read it now. It doesn’t matter if he looks at the words or not, he can hear them in his father’s voice as clearly as if he was standing in his father’s study. His back would be turned towards Hamid, disappointment clear in the hard, sharp lines of his shoulders. It’s a posture Hamid knows very well, and he can’t help but picture it now.

_The matter has been taken care of._

How much money does it take to make death disappear? What had it cost to preserve the family name? What will Hamid have to pay before he stops hearing the screams of his fellow students, before their faces stop haunting his nightmares?

_Don’t return home until you have made something of yourself._

He’s not being disowned, not outright, and the relief had been so staggering that Hamid had almost hated himself for it. He deserves worse than being kicked out of school, of suffering his father’s disappointment in him, no matter how much it hurts. Money his parents have given him still sits in his bank account. His flat is paid for in full and well furnished. He deserves worse, he knows he does, but he’s too much of a coward to walk away from security and safety.

Hamid finds himself rubbing at the earring in his ear, but the feeling of the familiar stone under his thumb brings him no comfort, and why should it? It’s another thing he doesn’t deserve, a family heirloom he’s not worthy of. For the first time, he finds himself reaching around to remove it. When he’s made something of himself, when he can go back home again, then he’ll put it back in.

He’s not prepared for what happens, the sudden heat that spreads through him, the feeling of heaviness that for a moment bows his back even more than grief and sorrow had. His father’s letter flutters to the floor, forgotten, the earring clenched tightly in his fist, digging into his palm. He’s still gasping with shock as he reaches towards his back, and when his fingers don’t sink into his old, familiar feathers, skid off something that feels leathery and warm instead, he finds himself stumbling towards the full length mirror in the hall as if he were drunk, the weight on his back making him feel clumsy and off balance.

His reflection in the mirror is different, changed. Instead of the brilliant kingfisher feathers that had looked so much like his sister’s, his wings glitter bronze. When he stretches them out, his wingspan larger than it had been before, he knocks over a decorative table and barely hears it clatter to the floor.

“What is this?” Hamid asks his reflection hoarsely, the first words he’s spoken out loud in hours. He touches his wings again, and they feel as solid and real under his fingers as his feathers always had. He goes to fold them, the muscles in his shoulder and back moving as they always have, but his wings don’t move the way he expects them to, the way the feathered ones always had. It takes him several minutes before he figures out how to wrap them around himself, before they drape around his shoulder almost like a cloak or a cape would.

Hamid stares down at the earring still clutched in his hand, suspicion slowly dawning as he moves his other hand across it, saying a few arcane words. He’s not surprised to see the strong magical aura surrounding the stone, and even less surprised when he studies the aura more closely to discover that what he’s looking at is a very powerful transmutation enchantment. He stares into the mirror as he puts the earring back into his ear, as his wings shrink and shift to look like his sister’s wings again.

Hamid takes the earring back out, and this time he knows what to expect. His wings return, brass scales glimmering in the mirror’s reflection. He knows what kind of wings these are. It should be impossible for him to have the wings of a Meritocrat, of a _dragon._ And yet, it doesn’t feel wrong. His reflection is different, changed, but for the first time in his life, it doesn’t feel _wrong._ When he begins crying again, it’s out of relief.

When Hamid next returns to his family’s house, during a time of great tragedy and sorrow, he wears a different earring, the stone green instead of purple, the magic illusion instead of transmutation. To all who see it, his dragon wings look like an exotic winged cloak, which is all the fashion among the well-to-do. But he sees the recognition in his mother’s eyes when he enters the room, sees the way his father’s shoulders stiffen.

It’s his father Hamid confronts on the balcony, alone. He works to keep his voice calm, civil, because there is so much more going on right now besides this deception, but he needs to ask, if only for his own piece of mind. “Why did you hide this from everyone? Why did you hide this from _me_?”

His father doesn’t look at him, just stares out across the courtyard as he gives the answer Hamid had expected. “I did what I thought was best.”

———

Hamid stares into the driftwood fire, resisting the sudden urge to creep even closer to it. He’s not cold really, not with the wind now calmed and the rain having become more of a mist. Transforming his clothes via his magical sleeves had the added benefit of drying the fabric as well, so he’s even comfortable in that respect. Still, he could be warmer.

Sasha snores a few feet away, sand still clinging to her wings. She’d stumbled out of the boat and staggered up the beach only to pass out in the sand, not that Hamid could blame her. They’d built a makeshift shelter around her and the fact that she hadn’t stirred once was a testament to how far past exhaustion she must have been. She’d been blown off the boat (and flown, had she flown or had to been just the wind that made it seem so?) and almost drowned before rowing in a storm for several hours after all. And what had Hamid done to earn his aching arms and the weariness that was settling deep into his bones?

“Hey,” Zolf says, putting down another armful of driftwood and sitting down next to Hamid. Off to the side, his trident glimmers in the firelight. “I know that look.”

Hamid immediately puts on a smile as he looks at Zolf. “What look?”

Zolf doesn’t smile back, just sighs, the corner of his lips twitching into a deeper frown. Even his wings look sad with the way they droop, but there’s no helping that. Hamid resists the urge to reach out and smooth down a few of the more errant feathers. Zolf wouldn’t be able to feel it, but that’s no excuse to be so familiar.

“It’s the same look you get after a fight. The look of a man who thinks he isn’t pulling his own weight.”

Hamid feels his smile starting to slip, but he’s too tired to try and shore it back up. Besides, Zolf’s right. “But I didn’t _do_ anything out there. Not like you and Sasha did. I mean, I spent half the voyage being sick.”

“You didn’t make anything worse,” Zolf says, and when Hamid gives a short, sad little laugh, he scowls slightly. “Okay, I could have phrased that better, but it’s been a long day. I just…” Zolf sighs again and puts a hand on Hamid’s shoulder, right on the outer edge of one wing. “I’m glad you came with us. You didn’t have to. I know the train would have been more… what you’re used to.”

Hamid doesn’t know if it’s the sincerity in Zolf’s voice or the sudden casual contact that makes him feel warm in a way that has nothing to do with the fire burning in front of them. He wants to lean into the touch, but he’s afraid if he moves then Zolf will move as well. “I would have been more comfortable,” Hamid admits. “And completely beside myself worrying about you.”

Something moves across Zolf’s face, the fingers resting on Hamid’s shoulder tensing for a moment, and Hamid realizes what he just said and how it must sound and he didn’t mean it like _that_ (except he did, didn’t he, he meant it like that a little, maybe a more than a little, but the look on Zolf’s face had been—)

The uh—the both of you I mean,” Hamid stutters. “You and Sasha.”

Hamid pretends he doesn’t hear Zolf sigh in relief, doesn’t feel the hand relax on his shoulder before moving away, doesn’t see the look of surprise (and fear, had it been fear that Hamid had seen or just a trick of the firelight?) leave Zolf’s face.

“You worry too much,” Zolf says quietly. “But I’m glad you came with me.” There’s a pause that lasts for three of Hamid’s frantically thudding heartbeats before he continues. “The both of you.”

Hamid wraps his wings very tightly around himself that night and spends more time than he should awake, thinking about that pause and everything it could or could not mean.

———

It should hurt. So many things should hurt. His arm, healed but useless, his thigh from where the _thing_ has sunk a barbed tentacle into him, his flesh as he’s dragged across the rough floor of the cavern. But nothing hurts. He just feels cold. The last warmth he had felt had been Zolf’s hands on him in the dark, offering no healing magic past that which had healed his arm but giving comfort all the same. But Zolf is gone, gone down into the dark and soon Hamid will be gone too and Sasha…. He can still hear Sasha, her boots scraping along the stone as she follows after him.

No. No. He can’t let Sasha die down here too. Zolf is gone, Hamid is soon to follow, but Sasha is still alive. She can make it out. One of them can make it out. One of them can live.

“Sasha!” Hamid calls out as loudly as he possibly can. “Sasha save yourself! _Please!_ ”

Hamid feels the bridge underneath him, feels Sasha’s hand brush his arm for a second in the dark and then there’s the sound of stone grinding against stone, then the horrible sensation of falling as the thing that has him bound makes a guttural sound that’s almost a scream. The tentacle around Hamid’s leg loosens in surprise and Hamid tries to kick himself free even though it’s useless. He’ll die from the fall regardless of if he’s in the monster’s clutches or not, but his body still fights to survive. He flaps his wings, and for a moment he’s a boy again, falling off a roof in Cairo, wings flapping fruitlessly.

Except this time he isn’t falling. This time his wings find purchase in the air just as they do in his dreams. Hamid has a moment where he wonders giddily if maybe he’s already hit the bottom, if this is the last dream in between death and whatever waits for him. Then he collides with something warm, something that clutches at him with thin fingers and smells like leather and sweat and blood.

“I’ve got you,” Sasha says as Hamid clings to her leather jacket with his one good hand, his wings still flapping.

“I’ve got _you_!” It comes out as a hysterical giggle that turns into a scream as a tentacle wraps around both their ankles and they are yanked down into the dark by the creature’s weight. Hamid strains to keep rising, his wing muscles burning, but it’s not enough as his first flight comes to a short, abrupt, end.

His second flight will be the opposite of this one. From darkness to light, from imprisonment to freedom, from under the ground to above it. He’ll have plenty of time to think about all of that as he sits in the best room in the best hotel in all of Paris, listening to the world crumble around him.


	3. Zolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A dwarf born with wings will never be happy.” It's an old dwarven saying, and for a very long time, Zolf thought it might be true....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of Zolf's early backstory, primarily the idea of Zolf's brother being killed in a cave-in that Zolf was also trapped in, are taken from Zolf's character backstory on Patreon and greatly expanded upon here by me, just thought I'd be clear about that up front. Whether that detail is canon or not I have no idea, I know as well as anyone how things change from conception to execution.

It’s a perfect day for fishing along the river, though in Zolf’s estimation there are no _bad_ days for fishing, Even a good, hard rain brings trout with it. But there is no rain today, just the warm sun shining down and a bit of a breeze ruffling the black feathers along the edges of Zolf’s outstretched wings. So far the fish aren’t biting, but it’s early yet, and he has all day—

“Zolf!”

Damn. Zolf doesn’t turn his head at the sound of his brother calling his name, just keeps staring out at the place where his fishing line enters the water. He had walked two damn miles upriver from his any of his usual fishing spots, hoping that would keep either his brother or his father from finding him until at _least_ past lunch. And yet he can hear Feryn coming up behind him, the sound of his heavy boots barely softened by the grass. As Zolf listens, the footsteps stop, but still Zolf only has eyes for his line in the water, the rest of his awareness on the rod in his hands, feeling for the slightest twitch.

“Zolf.”

Zolf can hear the anger in Feryn’s voice, but he doesn’t rise to it like a fish going after bait. “Feryn,” he replies, keeping his voice as level as the river.

“Just how long are you going to keep doing this?”

Zolf’s lips twitch into a smirk. “Oh, I figure until I get a few good sized fish at least. You can thank me later at dinner.”

“That is _not_ what I meant and you know it!” Zolf hears Feryn huff in frustration. “Can you at least _close_ those things when I’m talking to you?”

“Bass like the shade,” Zolf says, jerking his chin slightly toward the river. He’s being a bit of an ass and he knows it, the trees are actually providing more shade, regardless of how long and wide his wings are. There’s something about spreading his wings that just feels _right_ though. He can hold them out like that for hours without his muscles getting sore at all. Some of the fisherman he’s met along the banks, the ones who’ve been all the way to the sea, tell him that’s something the great seabirds can do, the ones that can fly all the way over the ocean. Zolf wonders if he’ll be able to do that someday. He daydreams about it sometimes, especially lately. “Dad come with you?”

“No. He’s back at the mine, _working_ , just like _you’re_ supposed to be!”

“Completely slipped my mind,” Zolf lies, tensing as the line twitches slightly in his hands, only relaxing slightly when the line goes slack again. “Listen, just tell him you couldn’t find me.”

“I will,” Feryn says. “If you promise to come down with me into the mine tomorrow.”

“No.” The word is as short and sharp as a fishhook.

“Zolf, this has gone far past being ridiculous,” Feryn says, and he sounds so much like their father, like every argument they’ve ever had over breakfast or during ever increasingly tense suppers. It’s no wonder that Zolf has been sneaking out earlier and earlier every morning to fish. “You’re never going to be a proper miner if you can’t get over this little fear of yours!”

Zolf turns his head away from the water so he can properly glare at his brother. Feryn looks so much like their father, same sandy brown hair and beard turned nearly gray from rock dust, same disapproving set to their mouth, same disappointment in their eyes. “Why do I have to be a miner? Just because everyone else in the family is?” Zolf turns his face back towards the water and pretends it’s the reflection of the sun off the river that makes his eyes sting. “You’re twice the miner I’d ever be anyway. You know it, I know it, Mom and Dad know—“

“They’ve never said that—“

“They don’t have to. You _saw_ how they looked at me last time I went down there. I was barely keeping it together and they _knew_ it. Hands shaking so bad I could barely hold the pickaxe, couldn’t catch my breath. You don’t understand what it’s _like_ for me down there!”

“You’re right, I don’t,” Feryn says, and he sighs. “Listen, just give me an hour tomorrow. We won’t even go down very far.”

_It doesn’t matter how far down we go!_ Zolf wants to scream. _How can you stand not being able to see the sky? To feel the sun and the wind on you? There’s no_ ** _air_** _down there! I can’t_ ** _breathe._** _I have these nightmares about—_

The line in Zolf’s hands jerks once, then again, harder this time. Zolf braces himself as he begins to reel in the fish.

“Zolf.”

“Fine,” Zolf says quickly, just wanting Feryn to leave him alone. “Fine, whatever. Tomorrow.”

“Promise.”

It’s not a question. “I promise,” he says through gritted teeth.

Feryn’s hand lands on Zolf’s shoulder for an instant, and then he’s gone, and Zolf can concentrate on doing what he loves and try not to think about tomorrow. An hour. Maybe he can handle an hour.

———

“Name?” The recruiter interviewing him, a human at least a two feet taller than him, whose name Zolf hadn’t quite caught, sounds bored, looking down at his clipboard instead of at Zolf.

“Zolf Smith.”

“Hmmm. Don’t get many dwarves signing up for the Navy.”

Zolf bristles, shifting slightly in his chair, prepared to get up and walk out. He works at keeping his voice even. “Is that going to be a problem? Sir.”

“Oh no, of course not,” the recruiter says, waving a hand dismissively at the notion. “Just an observation. Mostly dwarves sign up for the Underground Infantry, that’s all.”

_Between the dust in the air and the rocks pinning him to the ground, Zolf can barely breathe. He wheezes out his brother’s name with as much force as he can manage, but there’s no answer, not even the slightest shifting of rocks to indicate that his brother might be alive, might be able to hear him. He struggles to free himself, every movement bringing fresh agony with it, but it’s nothing compared to the pain of staring at the pile of stone where his brother had been standing._

“I prefer the open sky above me, sir,” Zolf says, resisting the urge to wipe at his eyes. The grit he swears he feels there is imaginary, a ghost that refuses to leave him. One of many. “I’d….” Zolf swallows, the words catching in his throat. “I’d rather be on the water than underground.”

_It’s worse than any nightmare he’s ever had, because every time he closes his eyes and opens them again, he does not wake up in his own bed. Every too shallow breath is an agony, every nerve ending in his body is screaming in pain. He sees his hand stretched out in front of him, watches his fingers claw weakly at the stone, as if he could possibly pull himself out. He closes his eyes. He opens them again. Still trapped. He’s cold. He’s cold and it’s harder to breathe but it also hurts less. Everything hurts less and that’s a bad sign and he’s going to die down here and he’s scared but even the fear seems as remote and far away as the sounds of shifting rock, of shouting. He closes his eyes._

“Do you have much sailing experience then?” The recruiter asks, sounding slightly more interested than he had a moment ago.

“Some. Just simple sailboats on the river, nothing as big as the ocean.” He doesn’t add that the first time he had seen the sea he had been so overcome by emotion that he had stood on the beach for hours, just staring at the waves, joy and guilt at that joy warring in his heart.

“Well, you’ll learn quick enough,” the recruiter says, making a note on his clipboard, then tapping his pen against it. “Time was there’d be a whole physical exam and such, but these days we’ll take just about anyone who walks in under their own power.” He gives Zolf a once over. “Or flies in, I suppose.”

Zolf swallows hard and takes a few deep breaths, but none of that helps to slow the beating of his heart or banish the sudden roaring sound in his ears. It almost sounds like the ocean. “Can’t fly, sir.” That’s all he has to say. Plenty of people with wings can’t fly. He doesn’t have to explain it, he doesn’t. He doesn’t have to talk about waking up after the accident and for a moment thinking that everything had just been a particularly bad nightmare, the rocks and the pain, the sound his father had made when he had seen what had become of Feryn, something caught between a scream and a sob, the same sound Zolf had made when he realized that he was still trapped in a nightmare, that he would never wake up from it. He doesn’t have to tell this man about not being able to feel his wings, about the damage to nerves and tendons that meant he couldn’t move them, couldn’t feel them. He doesn’t need to. He won’t.

“Shame.” The man makes a note. “Still, some captain is going to count themself lucky to have you.” He shakes his head and chuckles lightly. “This is an age of reason, but the sea is home to many superstitions. It’s considered good luck to have someone with the wings of a seabird on board, you see, and if they have the wings of an albatross like you, well, that’s luck on top of luck. Now, there’s just a few things you have to sign…”

Zolf isn’t on board the deck of the _Triumph of Reason_ for more than a week before he sees his first wandering albatross, their large white wings with black feathers along the tips and trailing edges a mirror to Zolf’s own. The ship’s crew had been eager to tell him all about albatrosses, how they were the spirits of those that died at sea, how they could bring a fair wind and lead ships safely out of storms, and that killing one would bring a curse down upon a ship and its crew. He learns that “an albatross around one’s neck,” refers to a great burden that must be carried as penance.

Zolf looks up at the albatross flying ahead of the ship and wishes he could spread his wings and join them, but he knows that even if he could move his wings, all that would happen if he leapt off the ship would be that he would sink into the sea. The guilt of having survived what his brother had not was heavier in his heart than any dead bird around his neck could ever be.

———

Even though everyone in the group is using the inn as their base of operations, Cel still goes down into the village and uses the alchemy setup in their old workshop (technically Jasper’s now) for some of their larger alchemical experiments, especially since Zolf banned them from doing their alchemy in the kitchen after the Ramen Incident. So when Zolf can’t find Cel around the inn, he’s not surprised to find them in their workshop, hunched over their latest project, their wings (feathered today) half raised, like a hawk hiding a kill from other predators.

Zolf knocks on the doorframe and Cel throws a look over their shoulder, most of their face obscured by their goggles, but nothing can hide their smile. “Zolf! Hi! Be with you in just a moment, got something a little bit time sensitive here.”

“Don’t rush on my account,” Zolf says. “I don’t have anywhere to be.” That’s not quite true and they both know it. Things are happening in the world that need to be stopped, but if they don’t take a day or two for themselves every once in awhile then they won’t be any good to anyone. So today is about recharging in whatever way works for them. For Cel that means experiments. For Zolf that means a day spent walking mostly by himself, followed by a night sleeping in a bed with Oscar curled up next to him and with Hamid’s warmth at his back, provided Hamid isn’t sleeping with Azu tonight. Zolf has a hard time keeping the schedule straight some days.

Cel turns back to their work, and Zolf tries to puzzle out just what wings Cel has today. Yesterday they had been black bat wings with orange markings down the ‘fingers’ of the wings, apparently like those of a painted bat Cel had seen in their travels. Today they have a bird’s wings, but Zolf has never seen feathers with such an iridescent sheen to them before, blue green in some places, coppery bronze in others.

“All right,” Zolf says when Cel finally hops down from their stool, a potion vial uncorked and cooling in a rack. “What bird did those come from?”

Cel stretches their wings and tilts their head. “Nicobar pigeon… I think. Pretty sure that’s what they were called. Down in… Thailand? I have it written down somewhere.”

Zolf chuckles quietly. Cel has _everything_ written down somewhere in one of their many (possibly hundreds of) notebooks. Someday when this is all over and the world is set to rights, maybe he can find someone to enchant a notebook so it never runs out of pages. “No need to look it up, was just curious. Is there anywhere you haven’t been?”

“Oh loads of places,” Cel says, folding their wings. “But that list seems to be getting smaller since I joined up with all of you.” They grin, raising their goggles so that they rest on top of their head. “You didn’t walk all the way down here just to talk about wings and geography, did you? I mean, it’s fine if you did!” Cel adds quickly. “I could literally talk about those things all day. Could talk about most things all day, really.” They move toward their overly complicated teapot, tapping a few buttons on the side. “Tea?”

“Sure,” Zolf says, and takes a seat on one of the nearby crates. “And, well, I guess I _am_ here to talk about wings.” He ruffles his own, the simple action still novel even after all these months. “Hamid was telling me last night you had a theory about why we can all fly? Something about soulmates?”

“Yup!” Cel says as they hand Zolf a teacup and sit on a crate across from them, one leg tucked up underneath themself. “I mean, it can’t just be coincidence that all of you found each other in the first place, and nearly all of you discovered you could fly when you couldn’t previously at some point after you met.”

“Except Grizzop,” Zolf points out. “He’d been flying for years before he met us.”

“He told me,” Cel says. “In fact, he’s the one who made me think that this theory about soulmates and touch might actually have something to it.” They take a sip of their tea. “And I mean, I’ve been trying to fly every day for literally as long as I can remember, but it didn’t happen until you showed up. All of you were the only variable that changed. The catalyst.”

“Grizzop might be right,” Zolf says, and Cel leans forward in excitement so fast that the tea almost sloshes out of their cup. “I mean, at least about the touch part. Soulmates…” He thinks about Hamid and Oscar, wonders what would have happened if Sasha had ever touched his wings. “Can you have more than one?” Zolf shifts his wings again, continuing on before Cel can answer. “Because that’s the only way what happened makes sense.”

———

The decision to leave hurts, but Zolf knows it hurts less than staying would. He knows about stress, about breaking points and fault lines, both in the ground beneath his feet and in his heart, and if he stays then sooner rather than later, all the shoring timbers in the world won’t prevent him from collapsing. He refuses to let anyone else get hurt if that happens.

Hamid is talking about money and bank accounts and Zolf is already shaking his head, pulling out the card with all his banking details on it. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Take whatever’s in here, split it between you. It’s—“ He feels his eyes burning. He’s not going to break down in the middle of a brewery in Prague, he’s _not._ He can cry later, when he’s alone. “It’s enough that I met the both of you.”

Sasha steps forward, and Zolf just assumes it’s to take his bank information from him, she’s practical like that. Instead she reaches for his other arm as if to shake hands, but instead she squeezes his upper arm in a clasp that’s as good as a hug from her. She looks him dead in the eyes for a moment as he squeezes her arm back, and even though she doesn’t say anything, Zolf knows she understands why he needs to leave.

It’s Hamid who plucks the card from his hand seconds before Zolf is wrapped in the tightest hug Hamid has ever given him in his life. Zolf hugs him back equally hard, trying to memorize every moment of it, the warmth and weight of Hamid in his arms. He can’t help but think of sitting on the beach with Hamid, about the moment he realized that he might be falling in love with him, about how scared he had been by the realization, just one more thing he felt he didn’t have the strength to handle, to explore.

Hamid’s crying, all of him shaking with it, and Zolf draws him a little bit closer. Hamid wraps his arms around Zolf even tighter, and for the first time Hamid must have included Zolf’s wings in the hug, because Zolf can’t feel Hamid’s hands. Hamid is usually so careful about that, as if touching Zolf’s wings could hurt. Zolf strokes Hamid’s back, feels the warmth of Hamid’s wings surround him, wishing he could return the favor with a strong, feathery hug.

_You could stay. You could stay and tell him how you feel and—_

That’s as far as Zolf gets with the line of thought, because he knows better. He knows he needs to work on his own foundations before he can start adding more weight. Maybe someday they can build something together. But not now, not while Zolf is drowning in his own feelings. He refuses to pull Hamid down with him.

Zolf feels a few tears slide down his cheeks. He needs to let go. He should tell Hamid to let him go. He should—

The muscles where Zolf’s wings meet his back contract for an instant, a sharp, nearly electric feeling accompanying the movement. Zolf flinches, his thoughts racing as Hamid lets go of him, tears trailing down his cheeks, his usually flawless eye makeup running, confusion plain on his face. None of it makes Hamid less beautiful, and all of it hurts Zolf’s heart.

“Zolf? What? Did—”

“I have to go,” Zolf says softly, but firmly. That weird feeling in his back is gone, if it ever really was there in the first place. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll write to you,” Hamid says, and Zolf doesn’t remind Hamid that he won’t know where to send any letters. Hamid will find a way.

“I’ll try,” Zolf says, and he doesn’t mean just writing letters. _I’ll try to be better. For me. For you. Both of you._

It’s easy enough to get passage back on the same ship they had left only hours before, Amelia is _more_ than happy to welcome him back on board, and the first thing she does is try to invite him to dinner.

“Could we postpone that until tomorrow?” Zolf rubs his thumb over Feryn’s ring sitting heavy and cold on his finger. He _wants_ to have a conversation about the Harlequins, figure out what all of that even means, if it’s something he wants to get involved with, but not now. Not today.

Amelia looks him up and down and whatever she sees earns Zolf a nod. “Not a problem,” she says, and then hands him a key. “Go get some rest, you look like you need it.”

The key unlocks what Zolf figures must be some sort of VIP passenger suite, all grand furnishings (bolted to the floor of course) and a bed that is way too large for one person of any size. Maybe tomorrow he’ll ask to be moved to a smaller room. For now though, he sits on the bed, and when the tears begin to fall he lets them.

Zolf wakes up that night curled so tightly into a ball he can barely breathe. His back and shoulders feel like they’re being stuck all over with electrified pins and his first thought is Paris, of waking up in pain and then seeing legs made out of water, legs he didn’t want, didn’t ask for, a tangible obligation to a god he no longer trusts. He reaches back without thinking, expecting his hand to touch water, and experiences a moment of relief at finding only feathers before he realizes that not only is he feeling his feathers with his hand, _he’s also feeling his hand with his feathers._

“That can’t be—“ Zolf starts to say, and then his wing twitches under his hand and he’s out of bed and across the room before he even realizes what he’s doing, feeling his wingtips brushing slightly against the floor. There’s a full length mirror bolted to the wall, a ridiculously ornate and extravagant thing, but Zolf is thankful for it now. He stares into the mirror as the awful prickling sensation starts to subside, and takes a look at himself. He’s wild-eyed and panicked looking, but it’s his wings he’s staring at.

Zolf has long grown used to the odd way his wings have hung from his back since the accident, nerves shot and tendons damaged in a way that no divine magic seems able to fix. They look different now, tips barely touching the floor, not quite as high up as they used to be, years upon years ago, but not dragging either. As he watches, they twitch again, left wing first, then the right one. They both raise at once when Zolf makes an effort. It’s only maybe a half an inch, but it’s the first deliberate movement Zolf has managed since the accident that had taken so much away from him.

“Is this you?” Zolf asks, but it’s not his reflection he’s speaking to, the reflection he can barely see through his tears. “You think if you just keep fixing all the broken bits of me I’ll start being more grateful?”

There’s no answer, but Poseidon has never been the talkative sort. Even as he asks the question though, Zolf is thinking about Hamid, about how all of this had started when Hamid had touched his wings. That couldn’t be coincidence, could it? Except it has to be. Hamid didn’t have any sort of healing magic, unless his tears had suddenly developed magical properties. Maybe they had, it’d make about as much sense as anything else that had been happening to him, to the world.

Zolf goes to bed with tears drying on his cheeks, a head full of unanswered questions, a heart full of mysteries, and the feeling of his wings brushing against the sheets.

———

“You know, you could have just _said_ you were molting.”

Zolf groans at the sight of Oscar standing in the doorway of his bedroom, his black swan’s wings as impeccable looking as always, holding several long, dull, white feathers in his hand. Damn. He had thought he gotten them all the last time he had snuck out to get something to eat. He scowls as he feels the beginning of a blush creep up his neck, and resists the urge to hide his head under his pillow. Molting always makes him feel as moody as a teenager, on top of being constantly hungry and tired. It doesn’t help that his wings are _itchy_ on top of everything else. It’s his first molt since he’s gotten feeling back in his wings and he had seriously misremembered just how bad the itchiness could get. Of course the worst of it is in places he can’t reach.

“I didn’t want everyone to know, now can you close the door please!” Zolf snaps, then immediately shuts his eyes against the wounded look that comes across Oscar’s face. Damn it all.

“Which side of the door do you want me to be on?” Oscar asks, his voice all calm and reason. “I’ll leave if that’s what you want.”

Part of Zolf _does_ want that. He feels absolutely wretched and no one should have to be around him right now. But Oscar has been with him through worse things, nightmares and days where grief has threatened to overwhelm him. He’s been there in between Zolf losing his legs and getting his new ones, when all the old memories of how helpless Zolf had felt in Paris had come flooding back. Zolf has been there for Oscar as well, side by side together in battle, helping each other get through their own shared grief over losing their friends, getting after the man to come out from behind that desk filled with paperwork to eat and sleep every one in awhile.

“I’m sorry,” Zolf says, opening his eyes with a sigh. “I’m being an arse. Stay? Please?”

“Of course,” Oscar says, closing the door quietly behind him as he enters. He places Zolf’s discarded feathers on the nightstand before sitting on the bed, reaching over to take Zolf’s hand in his own, kissing each of his knuckles in turn. Zolf shifts slightly so he can kiss the corner of Oscar’s mouth where the scar twists it upward. Their first kiss had been right after Oscar had gotten that scar, when Zolf had caught Oscar looking in the mirror with an expression that had made Zolf’s heart ache. He’d had to use his boots of levitation to do it, but Zolf had kissed that scar, red and raw as it was.

“Thank you,” Zolf says as he pulls back, then winces as another bit of his wing begins to itch. It’s at least a bit he can reach, though he has to be careful not to scratch so hard that he starts pulling feathers out. His wings feel ragged enough as it is, he doesn’t need to go adding to it. “Do _you_ get this itchy when you molt?” Zolf asks as he twists a bit under the sheet to go after another itchy spot. “Wait, _do_ you molt? I’ve never seen your wings look anything less than perfect.”

Oscar chuckles softly. “Prestidigitation and illusion magic can cover a lot of sins,” he says. “I assure you, my wings are a less than pretty sight when my time comes around. A warm bath would help with the itching. Or…”

Zolf waits for Oscar to continue, but the bard has a distant look in his eyes, like he’s caught up in a memory. “Oscar?”

Oscar shakes his head a bit. “Sorry. There’s something I could do. I don’t know if it would actually help with the itching, but it’d probably help you feel better.”

“Magic?” Zolf asks. “Because healing magic doesn’t help, believe me I tried.”

“Well, some have said my hands are magic,” Oscar says with a smile, holding them up with a flourish. “But no, nothing like that. It involves touching your wings though, and we haven’t… discussed that in awhile.”

They haven’t. There had been many discussions between the two of them when things had first started becoming physical, ways that they liked to be touched and ways they did not, certain places that were off limits. Oscar loves having his wings gently stroked, and Zolf enjoys doing that for him, but when Oscar had asked one night if he could return the favor, Zolf had been surprised to find himself uneasy at the thought, so much so that they had put that discussion aside for a time. Upon reflection, Zolf had realized what the problem had most likely been. Hamid had been the last person to intentionally touch his wings, though Zolf hadn’t been able to actually feel it at the time, and the memory of that last hug is as clear in Zolf’s mind as if it had just happened yesterday. But that’s all it is, a memory, and Oscar’s touch now can’t take that from him, won’t diminish that in any way.

“We can try it,” Zolf says quietly. “If it’s too much, I’ll let you know.”

It takes a bit of rearranging, but they work it out, Zolf laying on his stomach with his wings spread and Oscar sitting on his thighs. Zolf shifts slightly, feeling the tendons in his back twitch a bit before settling down. His wing muscles sometimes get a little sore when he stretches them, but they’ve gotten back quite a bit of strength since Prague.

“Comfortable?” Oscar asks.

“Yeah,” Zolf says. “Go ahead.”

Oscar’s fingers rest lightly on Zolf’s spine. “This is a little more involved than just simple wing stroking. We’ll start from here and work on out, all right?”

“You’re the expert,” Zolf says, and Oscar just laughs softly.

“I’m not, actually,” Oscar says as his hands move upwards, massaging around where Zolf’s wings meet his back. “I’ve only every had this done _to_ me, and I was in a rather sorry state at the time.”

“When?” Zolf asks as Oscar’s fingers begin to gently brush at the edges of his feathers. The sensation is almost ticklish, but not unpleasant.

“Damascus,” Oscar says, and Zolf knows about Damascus, he’s heard the stories before. “When I was being cursed, when I couldn’t sleep, they put me in an anti-magic cell. I should have been able to drop right off after that, except when you’re so used to being awake, when any moments of sleep you get are filled with the most terrifying nightmares, well, you might imagine it was a little hard for me to close my eyes and relax. So Grizzop helped. ‘For the good of the pack’, he said.”

Oscar says Grizzop’s name the same way Zolf says Hamid’s, with grief in every syllable, and Zolf wonders if Oscar is mourning a connection that never had a chance to flourish, the same way Zolf mourns the time he always thought he might have one day had with Hamid. Then suddenly all he is thinking is _oh_ because suddenly Oscar’s hands are on his wings proper, his fingers probing deep into the feathers, trailing gently along the shafts. Zolf makes a sound, and Oscar’s hands go still.

“Was that a good sound or a ‘please stop’ sound?”

“Don’t stop,” Zolf half mumbles into the pillow, and Oscar laughs.

“Just making sure,” he says as he continues.

Zolf sinks into the sudden drowsy contentment he’s feeling as if he were sinking into a bath. That’s what it reminds him of, those times when he’s shared a bath with Oscar, when they’ve taken turns washing each other’s hair. It’s a pleasurable sensation, soothing and warm, and Zolf hadn’t realized how just how tense he’s been during his molt until he feels all his muscles relax.

“You said this wasn’t magic,” Zolf says, trying to sound accusatory but only sounding sleepy.

Oscar chuckles and leans forward, pressing a kiss to the back of Zolf’s neck. “It’s not, not the way you mean, but it is nice, isn’t it?”

“I’m going to return the favor,” Zolf promises. “When I can move again.”

“I’d like that,” Oscar says, and Zolf can hear the smile in those words. “Later. Just _relax.”_ Oscar’s hands move a bit lower, slow and gentle, being careful not to pull on any feathers. Zolf can feel his fingers trailing over the new feathers growing in, a tingly, prickly sensation that isn’t entirely unpleasant, and is much better than the itching has been. “Your new flight feathers are coming in nicely.”

“Can they still be called flight feathers if you can’t actually fly?” Zolf asks. He expects a chuckle and gets a thoughtful hum from Oscar instead.

“You’ve tried since… then, I take it?”

“Yeah,” Zolf admits. “Not right away. Waited until I built up the strength in my wing muscles first. I thought it would work, like whatever lead to my wings healing up would have just gone ahead and done the rest of it too. When I tried though, I don’t know. It felt like… something was missing. Couldn’t tell you what though.” Zolf frowns, shifting slightly. “Can you— right wing, lower left? It’s getting itchy again.”

Oscar complies, and Zolf huffs out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“More than welcome,” Oscar says. “About the flying, you could keep trying. No one knows _why_ some people can and some can’t. There’s songs about it—“

“There’s songs about _everything_ ,” Zolf teases.

“You’re not wrong,” Oscar says with a chuckle. “As I was saying though, the songs can’t even agree on what causes flight. Divine intervention—“

“Still not sure that’s what happened with my wings healing up in the first place,” Zolf grumbles. He can’t tell if it’s intuition or just sheer stubbornness, but he doesn’t want to believe that his sudden recovery was Poseidon’s work.

“Then of course there’s dire need,” Oscar continues. “Which is how _I_ discovered I could fly a year ago, but why it happened at _that_ moment instead of any of the other countless times it would have been exceedingly handy to dodge an attack by flying twenty feet up into the air, I couldn’t tell you.”

“That’s how it happened for Sasha and Hamid too,” Zolf says. “Maybe I just need to go charging into danger more often.”

“As if the world isn’t dangerous enough without you throwing yourself into the middle of it,” Oscar says, and somehow the admonishment sounds fond. “Then of course, there’s the touch of your true love…”

There’s no reason the word should make Zolf’s heart beat so fast, except it’s a sentiment neither of them have expressed in terms of one another. Oscar has had many lovers over the years, but Zolf doesn’t know if Oscar has loved any of them, or if he even loves Zolf in that way. It’s all right if Oscar doesn’t. All Zolf knows is how _he_ feels. He’s felt this way before and never said anything, and now he never _can_ say it, not to Hamid. (He doesn’t know of course that he _will_ get his chance, he can’t know that, not now.)

Zolf lifts his head from the pillow and looks at Oscar over his shoulder. “I don’t know about _true_ love,” Zolf says, because in the books he reads ‘true’ love seems to imply that you can only love one person, and that’s simply not true for him, “but if it’s based on love then—“

_Then I should be able to fly from you touching me,_ is what Zolf would have said, if not for the sudden, hot, prickling pain that spreads across his wings in an instant. He doesn’t have time to warn Oscar, doesn’t have the breath for it, can barely hear Oscar shouting his name over the frantic, instinctual beating of his wings as he tries to make the pain _stop_ …

It’s probably only seconds later when the feeling subsides, leaving Zolf shaking, his fingers aching as he releases his grip on the bedsheets. His wings feel strangely tender as he quickly folds them and opens his eyes, rolling over when he realizes he can no longer feel the weight of Oscar on him. He hasn’t gone very far though. He’s half sprawled at the foot of the bed, rubbing his jaw, _completely_ surrounded by feathers, some dull white, a few all black ones scattered here and there.

“What in the hells was that?” Zolf asks, reaching back to touch his wings, half scared that all he’ll touch is bare skin and bone. Instead his hand meets feathers and that should be a comfort instead of a mystery.

“Beyond the most dramatic molt I’ve ever seen in my life? I couldn’t begin to tell you.” Oscar says. “I could literally _feel_ new feathers growing under my hands before you hit me. Luckily you don’t have swan wings, probably would have broken my jaw.” He says it with a smile, but his hand is shaking when he reaches out to Zolf, and that’s just fine, because Zolf is shaking too. “Are you all right?”

Zolf crawls forward a bit and lets himself be held while he thinks about the question. Now that the initial shock is over, he realizes he feels fine. He stretches his wings and they move easily, with no soreness or lingering weakness at all.

“Do you think—?” Zolf says at the same time as Oscar. They don’t bother to finish their sentence, Oscar climbing off the bed while Zolf reaches over the side of the bed to put on his mechanical legs. Moments later they’re both standing outside the inn, the afternoon rain not much more than a mist, though it’s sure to pick up again by evening. There’s a good breeze blowing, one that could properly fill a sail.

“Maybe I should get a running start,” Zolf says, shifting his wings in anticipation. Part of him doesn’t want to get his hopes up, but, well, there’s nothing wrong with hoping, is there? If this doesn’t work, he’s no worse off than before at any rate.

“Whatever feels right,” Oscar says, and that’s all the encouragement Zolf needs.

Zolf runs across the courtyard, spreads his wings, feeling the muscles flex, feeling the feathers catch the air and then his feet aren’t touching the ground anymore and he lets out a sound that’s a laugh and a scream and a sob all at once as he soars up into the sky. It’s better than all his childhood daydreams, better than anything he’s ever imagined. He flies up over the trees and there’s the ocean in the distance, waves capped with foam the same color as his feathers. He had dreamed of flying across it once.

“It’s beautiful up here,” Oscar says suddenly from beside him.

Zolf turns his eyes away from the sea and looks at Oscar, his hair blowing in the wind, his wings looking immaculate as always, “It is,” Zolf says, reaching out to Oscar with one hand while wiping away tears with the other.

There was an old dwarven saying Zolf had heard more than once around town growing up, and even a few times when he had been out at sea. “A dwarf born with wings will never be happy.” He’s sure it’s supposed to have some sort of deep meaning, be a metaphor or an allegory, something Oscar could explain if he had a care to. Zolf had never bothered to puzzle it out when he was younger, and after the accident he’d simply taken the words as a proclamation, and a true one at that. But he had been wrong. His past was full of pain and regret, and the future of the world and all the people in it was a trembling, uncertain thing. But right now…

Oscar takes Zolf’s hand in his, and Zolf smiles as they look back out to the horizon. Right now, in this moment, he is happy, and he’s going to hold on to that feeling for as long as he can, for as long as it lasts.


	4. Grizzop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grizzop lost his clutch when he was so young that he barely remembers it. It's in finding his pack that he learns how to fly.

Grizzop doesn’t sleep well in new places, and Cel’s shop is no exception, though they’ve all been staying there over a week now, first to recruit Cel to their cause and keep an eye on them to see if they were infected, and then to work on a boat that could get everyone over to the chunk of rock off the coast where Shoin kept his base. The constant storms over the ocean sadly made flight an impossibility, otherwise they would have been there and back again by now. Instead they’re going to be crammed together in a boat, and Grizzop will probably be so busy trying to keep everyone calm (Azu hates small spaces. Sasha minds them less if she can see the way out, but she hates feeling crowded) that he won’t have time to think about how he also doesn’t like small spaces, especially when water is involved.

Grizzop doesn’t sleep well in new places, especially when his dreams are filled with water and stone, no doubt brought on by the near constant rain drumming on the roof, so he does what he always does when he can’t sleep. He checks on the pack, moving quietly through the dark halls and silent rooms, eyes wide and ears twitching. He doesn’t have to open doors to know who’s behind them, thanks to the way most of this place is constructed, with its thin walls of wood and paper. He can hear Azu’s quiet sighs intermingled with Hamid’s sleepy rumble of a purr, his draconic heritage showing itself even in the way he breathes.

Grizzop pauses for a long time outside of the room Zolf is sleeping in. He hasn’t known Zolf for very long at all, but it’s obvious to Grizzop that Hamid and Sasha and Zolf are pack within pack, which makes Zolf part of the greater pack. There’s loyalty there, and a fierce desire to protect, and Grizzop understands and appreciates both qualities. There’s sadness there too, though Grizzop doesn’t know the source of it yet. He listens to Zolf’s peaceful breathing (it’s not always peaceful, but tonight it is) and moves on.

Grizzop can’t hear Sasha’s gentle snoring in any of the rooms he passes, and that in itself isn’t unusual. Like Grizzop, Sasha knows how important it is to grab things like sleep and food whenever the opportunity presents itself. Also like Grizzop, she has a hard time staying asleep sometimes. Grizzop’s seen her drop off only to wake up ten minutes later with wide eyes and her breath coming too fast, her wings wrapped so tightly around herself he could swear he could hear the tendons creak. For all Grizzop knows she’s up on the roof, getting soaked in the rain. It’ll be a place to check, after he looks in the last place he saw her.

Cel’s workshop door is partially open, the smell of tar permeating the hallway. Grizzop wrinkles his nose as he pokes his head around the side of the door. They had been using tar to help waterproof the boat yesterday, and then, well, mistakes had been made. It had taken hours to clean the tar off the walls and themselves. Prestidigitation could only do so much. And sure enough, there’s Sasha, asleep at a workbench, bits of a bomb she’d been tinkering with scattered near where her head lays pillowed on her arms. Someone, probably Cel, has tucked a blanket around her shoulders. Of Cel themself there is no sign, just a dozen open notebooks near where Sasha is sleeping.

Grizzop walks over to Sasha, stopping just short of stabbing range. Sasha sometimes gets a little defensive when first woken up. “Sasha,” he says softly. “You should go to bed.”

Sasha makes a sleepy, unintelligible sound, one eye cracking open. “…’zop?” She yawns, then winces, straightening up and rubbing at her neck. “Ow.” She blinks slowly, looking around before focusing on Grizzop. “Cel’s not here? They were workin’ on something, sounded right agitated.”

“Probably already went to bed, which is where _you_ should be,” Grizzop tells her. “Sleeping all hunched over won’t do you any favors.”

Sasha yawns again, her eyes half closed. “Yeah, all right.” She unfolds herself from the workbench and walks towards the door that leads to the rest of the shop, blanket trailing behind her, pausing when she gets to the threshold to look over her shoulder. “Are you coming?”

“I’ll…” Grizzop spots something out of the corner of his eye. One of the workshop doors leading outside into the courtyard is slightly ajar. “I’ll be along in awhile.”

Sasha straightens up a bit, one hand rubbing at her eyes. “I can stay up, if you want the company.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Grizzop says, and it’s not a lie. “Just making the rounds.”

Sasha nods, and Grizzop knows she understands, knows that she wakes up sometimes and can only get back to sleep after checking the perimeter and making sure everyone is safe. She really _would_ make an excellent member of the Cult of Artemis if she ever felt inclined to drift that way. “Night then.”

“Night.” Grizzop turns away, and as tired as Sasha seems, her exit is still a silent one. He’ll find her curled up in a corner of his room later, and he’ll tuck another blanket around her before going back to sleep, close but not too close. For now though, for now he crosses the workshop floor, past the boat that’s nearly finished, towards the partially open door that leads outside. He isn’t at all surprised when Cel walks through that door and almost trips over him, and he dodges out of their way easily enough.

“Oh! Grizzop, hey there!”Cel’s gaze, distant a moment ago, is now focused on him, eyes bright, the smile they give him wide and brittle. “What are you doing up?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Grizzop says, even though he thinks he knows the answer. He’s only known Cel for a little over a week, but they _get_ each other, have done since practically the first day they met. It’s a very short list of people Grizzop has felt were _pack_ nearly upon meeting them, three to be precise. Hamid had taken some time, and Bertie had never felt like pack at all. Azu had taken about as much time as Hamid had, and Wilde…. Wilde had been complicated, and still was. But Vesseek and Sasha had been different, a strong bond forming in so short a time, and he doesn’t think he’s imagining that same sort of bond forming between him and Cel.

Grizzop looks Cel over as they close the door behind them and run a hand through their waterlogged hair. Their wings, the same purple and green hummingbird wings from this morning, betraying the fact that they haven’t slept yet, flutter briefly, sending water droplets flying. Grizzop’s own wings echo theirs for a minute before settling. He hadn’t even known what hummingbirds were before Cel, had just known that the wings he’d been born with moved so fast that they made their own sound, and that they were nearly the same color as Vesseek’s skin, the same way Vesseek’s gray wings had matched Grizzop’s.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Cel says, then laughs. “Okay, I didn’t _try_ , so maybe I could have. But today was just, just a lot? Well, I guess it’s yesterday now. Yesterday was a lot.” They flap their wings again, this time rising just a bit off the ground. “I couldn’t do _this_ before yesterday, not without potions, and now it’s _all the time_ , just like it is for the rest of you, and I don’t know _why,_ like, why _now_ , except it has something to do with all of you, it has to, I’ve been trying to fly every day since I can remember, I have _notes_ , and you’re the only thing that’s changed, but I still don’t know the _how._ ” They take a breath, the humming of their wings growing even louder as they hover, running both hands through their hair now, water dripping onto the floor. Their expression is one of frustration mixed with excitement and Grizzop _understands_. When you’ve been hunting for something for so long, be it a person or information, and you get so _close_ and yet somehow you’re still behind, your quarry just out of reach…

“So I was trying to figure it out, you know?” Cel continues, still hovering an inch or two above the floor. “And I’m used to figuring things out out loud, but I didn’t want to wake up Sasha— who isn’t here now?”

“Sent her to bed,” Grizzop says, and Cel nods quickly. “Cel—“

“Good. Good, good, good. She’s really sorry about the other day, you know. I _told_ her it was fine, these things are _bound_ to happen when you combine explosives and tar, and we _all_ got it off of our wings _eventually._ She’s still trying to figure out how to build that bomb, won’t give up, reminds me of me. Except she fell asleep, and I didn’t, and I didn’t want to wake her up, so I went for a walk, and tried to talk out my thoughts, because sometimes that helps, except it didn’t, and it’s like I’m staring at a puzzle and I have all the pieces but I just can’t put them _together._ ”

Grizzop flies up and puts his hands on Cel’s shoulders, keeping his touch light, ready to let go at the slightest sign of discomfort. “Cel—“

“It can’t be coincidence,” Cel continues. “It can’t be coincidence that you all know each other and you can all fly and now I can too. Sasha says you’ve been able to fly the longest out of all of them, that you already knew how before you met them. How?”

Grizzop wants to tell Cel to go to sleep, that he’ll tell them in the morning, but he knows that Cel is too keyed up, that’ll they’ll still be as awake at dawn as they are now unless Grizzop does something. He can’t help but think of Vesseek. How many times had Vesseek had to calm him down during frustrating hunts? How many times had Grizzop fallen asleep to Vesseek’s hands in his feathers, or to them telling him stories?

“I’ll tell you about it,” Grizzop promises. “But you should get out of those wet clothes first. And make some tea.”

“I can do that!” Cel says, landing abruptly, leaving Grizzop hovering in the air above them. “I’ll be right back!”

Grizzop watches them leave with a wry smile and a shake of his head. He doesn’t even _like_ tea very much, but Cel loves making it, it makes them feel better, and that’s the important part. He flies over to a stool near Cel’s notes and waits for them to come back. He’s already thinking about Vesseek, first of the pack in his heart, and how they had brought out the best in him. Flight had been the least of it.

———

Paladins of Artemis don’t hide from their problems. You hide when you hunt to surprise your quarry, but when you have a problem you flush it out into the open, hunt to find a solution. Grizzop isn’t a paladin yet though, and _technically_ he isn’t hiding anyway. Everyone in the temple of Artemis knows about the outdoor shrine to the goddess of the hunt, has spent at least some time in meditation there, has tended the plants or kept moss and lichen from creeping up the statue of Artemis and her hounds. And okay, maybe someone new might not know about it, say someone who has only been here a few weeks, but it wasn’t like Grizzop had covered his tracks. Any halfway decent hunter could find him if he was hiding. Which he isn’t. He’s just up in a tree, running one hand over the rough tree bark of the branch he’s sitting on over and over again, enjoying the texture of it. There’s no one here to stare at him for it, just like there’s no one to stare at him for the constant beating of his wings.

It’s not that Grizzop doesn’t know how to be still, or that he literally can’t be. He _can_. He can ace any training exercise that involves hiding or stealth. He can even hide of the smallest of spaces when he needs to, even though he doesn’t like small spaces at _all,_ doesn’t like the way they make his heart race and his chest feel tight. It’s just, sometimes when he’s full of emotions, he has to let them out, and flapping his wings really fast so they make a humming sound makes him feel good. And sometimes when he’s sad or scared or nervous, touching certain things makes him feel better. Rough things like tree bark or stones (not wet stones, not ever) or even the sleeve of his shirt, or other things that have an interesting texture, like the feathers he fletches his arrows with.

Grizzop thinks about gray feathers against dark green skin and feels his face grow hot as his wings beat faster. He looks up at the slowly darkening sky, at the moon beginning to show itself, a perfect half moon, and sighs. “Oh Artemis,” he says softly. “What am I going to do?”

“About what?”

Grizzop hands freeze on the branch, his wings going still. The voice hadn’t come from the moon (he didn’t know what he would have done if it had) but from below him, a familiar voice that made his heart race like a deer in the moonlight. He looks down from his perch and sees Vesseek looking up at him, their yellow eyes shining in the last faint bit of the setting sun. In the dark they’ll look as silver as the moon rising in the sky.

“You kind of ran off after training,” Vesseek says when Grizzop doesn’t answer, their ears twitching. “And then you missed dinner. I was worried about you.”

“I just… needed some time to think.” Grizzop’s claws scrape a bit at the tree bark. “Can you—can we— talk about something? I can come down…”

Vesseek is already halfway up the tree as Grizzop trails off, scrabbling up onto the broad branch Grizzop is sitting on with ease, not minding how the branch sways and creaks a bit under the added weight. Grizzop watches as they sit several feet away, their grey wings fluttering a bit before settling. They’re nearly the same color as Grizzop’s skin, and not for the first time Grizzop wonders if his hand would blend in perfectly with Vesseek’s feathers.

“You can come closer,” Grizzop says.

“Can I?” Vesseek’s ears are laid back, almost touching their shoulders. “I thought maybe touching you was the problem.”

Grizzop thinks about the day they first met, only a few weeks ago, Vesseek’s hand on his shoulder, so solid and warm and friendly, about how close they sat to him at meals, their foot knocking against his under the table. There had been a night up on the roof of the temple where they’d been talking about the sorts of things you talk about in the dark, old memories and old fears, and Vesseek’s fingers had brushed his hand. And then there was this morning, Vesseek offering him a hand up after they had managed to knock him down in the training yard, how Vesseek had continued to hold his hand after Grizzop had gotten to his feet, the way their thumb had swept over his wrist. And every time Grizzop had flinched or pulled away because it had been so… so…

“I’m sorry—“ Vesseek starts to say, but Grizzop is already talking, words spilling out of him, wings buzzing frantically.

“It’s not a problem, _you’re_ not a problem, it’s me, whenever you touch me it just feels so _big,_ like it’s too much but not enough all at once, and I want to touch _you_ all the time, I want to run my hand through your feathers and lean on you at meals and at night sometimes I imagine the two of us sleeping curled up together, and I want all of that so _much_ , like I’ve never wanted anything before and it was such a _big_ feeling that it felt scary, and that’s why I kept flinching and I’m _sorry_ and this probably doesn’t make any sense, we only just met and…” Grizzop closes his eyes, suddenly out of words, his face hot, concentrating on the feeling of the tree bark underneath his hands, listening to the thrumming of his wings.

“Grizzop.” Vesseek’s voice is so quiet that Grizzop stills his wings so he can hear it. “What you’re feeling makes total sense.”

Grizzop opens his eyes andlooks at Vesseek. Their ears have perked up slightly, and the smile they offer Grizzop is small, but it’s there. “You mean it?”

“Wouldn’t say it if I didn’t,” Vesseek says. “All those things you want, I want them too. With you. But for me, it’s not… it’s not a scary feeling, because it’s not a _new_ feeling. Growing up I _had_ all that, clutch mates to sleep next to at night and clan mates to lean on. Grooming each other’s wings, that was just like… like hugging or holding hands or something. But if I hadn’t grown up with that, I’d probably feel the same way you do, like it’s a big, overwhelming thing.” Their wings flutter for a moment before settling again. “And I didn’t even _notice_ the flinching until today, otherwise I would have asked what was wrong before now.” Vesseek puts their hand in the space between themselves and Grizzop. “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t know,” Grizzop tells them. He looks at Vesseek’s hand, then at his own. “Can I… touch your hand?”

Vesseek’s smile gleams in the moonlight! “Well yeah!” Their ears twitch slightly upward. “Do you want me to ask before touching you? Would it help? ‘Cause I can do that!”

“I’d like that,” Grizzop says. He moves over a bit on the branch and reaches out. Vesseek’s hand is warm again his, larger than his own, and the feel of skin against skin invokes that feeling of too much and not enough in a way that makes Grizzop flap his wings until the feeling stabilizes into just right.

“One day you’re going to fly away when you do that,” Vesseek says, and though it sounds a little bit like teasing it doesn’t make Grizzop feel weird and ashamed like when other people comment on his buzzing wings sometimes. Instead he just laughs.

“I wish! If I could fly, our targets wouldn’t know what hit them! Just a buzzing sound and then wham! Full of arrows!”

Vesseek grins. “Or they get distracted trying to figure out where the noise is coming from and then I’d swoop down and—“ Vesseek mimes a sword thrust, wings fluttering. “Assuming I could fly too, I mean.”

Grizzop’s eyes are drawn to Vesseek’s wings, and, well, this seems to be a night for discovery and revelation, there’s nothing wrong with asking. “Can I touch your wings? I’ve— been wanting to do that since I met you.”

Vesseek’s grin grows even wider. “Sure! Yeah! Absolutely!” They shift slightly on the branch, presenting their back to Grizzop, a simple action speaking of trust and vulnerability.

_Oh_ , Grizzop thinks as he reaches out and places a hand near where Vesseek’s wings meet their back, marveling at the texture of the feathers underneath his fingers. It’s even better than his daydreams, and there’s a feeling of _rightness_ in his heart, of _closeness_ as he brings up his other hand to gently, so gently, card his fingers through Vesseek’s feathers. His hands nearly blend into the grey feathers, and even among this bark brown feathers near the edge of the wings his hands are shadows. “Am I— is this all right?”

“It’s perfect,” Vesseek says quietly, and it’s the last thing either of them say for a time, the silence only broken by the sounds of animals going about their own nightly activities and the occasional flapping of Grizzop’s wings.

“You ever wonder why some people get born with wings in the first place?” Grizzop asks after awhile.

Vesseek shrugs. “I mean, it’s either magic or gods. Magic’s unpredictable and gods… well they’re _gods_ , you know? Could do anything. Not big on spelling things out though.” They hum thoughtfully. “I don’t know how it is for anyone else, but I was told goblins used to live in trees, and that’s why most of us get born with wings. My whole clutch had ‘em, though theirs were more colorful than mine.” Their wings shift a bit under Grizzop’s hands. “Was always a little bit jealous, but I kind of like the color more now.”

“They’re good camouflage in the woods,” Grizzop says, and Vesseek chuckles.

“That too,” they say, and Grizzop can hear the grin in their voice. “But I meant that we match, just like your wings match my skin nearly.”

“We blend into each other,” Grizzop says, one of those things that makes no sense and yet somehow is true.

“Yeah,” Vesseek says. “Exactly.” They look at Grizzop over their shoulder. “Listen, I’m _more_ than happy to have you groom my wings all night long if you like, but do you want a turn?”

“Yes!” It comes out as an excited squeak, because oh yes, he wants that. “Just.. It might be a lot. If I need you to stop…”

“Just say,” Vesseek says quickly, no judgement in their tone. “Or like, tap my leg or arm or something. All right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, all right.”

There’s a few moments of shifting around and then it’s Grizzop with his back turned to Vesseek, wings trembling a bit in anticipation, only stilling when Vesseek places their hand very lightly on the edge of one wing.

“Still good?”

“Yeah,” Grizzop says, relieved. It’s a _different_ sensation than he’s used to, the feeling of someone touching his feathers, but it’s not overwhelming yet, and it doesn’t feel bad. “Yeah, keep going.”

“Your feathers are so _small_ ,” Vesseek says, something like wonder in their voice. “And there’s so many.” Their hand moves, slow and gentle and Grizzop is surprised that his own heart slows with the motion. This is safety and warmth and _calm_ , this is _contentment_. He’s always thinking, always frantic with the need to do something, but right now all he wants is this, to be still and let himself feel.

Grizzop closes his eyes, drifting for an endless time in the feeling of safety and warmth and something else. Familiarity. Grizzop had been young when the rest of his clutch had died (he sometimes wakes from nightmares with the sound of rushing water still in his ears, the feeling of slick stone underneath his claws) and his memories of them are hazy and dim. He thinks they might have had wings too, some of them, it’s the only way he can explain why the sight of certain birds makes his chest feel tight and his eyes sting. Had his mother done this for him as well, running her fingers through his feathers to soothe him?

“Grizzop?” Vesseek’s voice is soft in his ear. “You falling asleep on me?”

Grizzop yawns, opening his eyes. He _is_ tired, but it’s a good sort of tired, the kind that comes from getting your thoughts out in the open. “Maybe?”

Vesseek chuckles, withdrawing their hands from Grizzop’s feathers. “Well, maybe goblins used to live in trees and maybe we didn’t, but _I’m_ not falling asleep in a tree unless I have to.” They stretch both arms and wings while mirroring Grizzop’s yawn. “Let’s go in, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Grizzop agrees, stretching lazily. “Listen, can we—“ He means to ask if they want to sleep next to him tonight, but he doesn’t end up finishing the sentence. Just the thought of it fills him with so many feelings that he flaps his wings just as he has countless times before except this time he ends up fifteen feet in the air and his sentence ends in a scream of surprise.

“Grizzop?!” Vesseek is looking up at him, their eyes wide. “Artemis and all her hunting hounds, I blinked and you were _gone._ How—“

“I don’t know!” It’s nearly a screech as Grizzop darts around, zipping in whatever direction he focuses on. He’s going so _fast_. Is this what it’s like to be an arrow just after it’s fired? Somehow he manages to stop in front of Vesseek, his grin matching theirs. “It’s either magic or gods, right?”

“Do you think I can do it too?”

“Try it!” If Grizzop smiles any wider, the top of his head is going to come off. “I’ll catch you if it doesn’t work.”

Vesseek doesn’t hesitate to leap from the branch, and whether that’s because they trust Grizzop to catch them or for their wings to catch the air, Grizzop cannot say. Vesseek’s wings are shadows in moonlight as they spread them, as they fly, as their delighted laughter mixes with Grizzop’s own.

The two of them fly together until exhaustion threatens to overtake them, Grizzop darting swift as an arrow, Vesseek swooping and diving. Eventually they end up on the roof of the temple, curled up around each other, moonlight shining down on the two of them as if blessing this newly formed pack of two.

———

Grizzop should be sleeping, he knows this, especially when he’s so recently seen an example of what happens when you don’t sleep, though Wilde is an extreme case and it had been completely out of the man’s control. Still. Grizzop should be sleeping. Instead he’s sitting outside Wilde’s cell, keeping guard. It’s possible that whoever’s been casting spells on Wilde might try to teleport in and do things a little more directly once they realize magic isn’t working on the man anymore. That’s what Grizzop tells himself anyway. Personally he thinks the chances are slim that anyone’s going to try a direct attack. If they had wanted Wilde dead, there were much quicker ways to do that than simply casting spells from a distance to make sure the man didn’t get a proper rest. Still, it seems like anything’s possible these days. So Grizzop keeps watch, taking the time to check the fletching on his arrows, in some cases just redoing it entirely. If he spends more time running the slate-gray feathers through his fingers than strictly necessary, well, the only one who would notice is Wilde, who is sleeping safely in his anti-magic cell.

Grizzop knows he’s doing the right thing, getting things wrapped up here before meeting up with the others in Rome. The knowledge does little to ease his mind though, to calm his racing heart and his racing thoughts. He wants to be with his _pack_ , helping to keep them all safe. He wants to be there when they find the hostages, find _Vesseek_ who better still be alive when he gets there or there will be no where on earth that their kidnappers will be able to hide from him. He’s sworn an oath to Artemis to protect people, but there are other oaths, other ways to be a paladin. He’ll become one of her Hounds if he has to, he’ll—

Tears drip onto the feathers he’s holding (the feathers from Vesseek’s last molt, given to him to fletch his arrows with for luck, as a way for them to be together on hunts even when they are apart), and Grizzop carefully tucks them away before wiping at his face. “Please let my pack be safe,” Grizzop whispers, running his fingers over the rough stone of the walls. “Please, let all of them be safe.”

“They’re all quite capable,” Wilde says quietly from his cell.

Grizzop jumps to his feet and then rises a little bit higher, wings buzzing in panic as he glares at Wilde, who’s laying on his cot with his eyes open, looking at Grizzop with the sort of apathetic calm that comes with extreme exhaustion. Without his usual glamor the man truly looks terrible, his eyes dark, sunken pits in his too pale face, his shaved head doing him no favors. Even his wings look disheveled, not at all as elegant as they usually do.

“How long have you been awake?!” Grizzop asks, still hovering, wiping frantically at his face to catch any tears he missed. He had been _sure_ Wilde had been asleep when Grizzop had gone to run some errands,(interrogating Barret had been an errand, if Grizzop had needed to execute the man it would have been more of a chore) and he had been equally sure of the fact when he had gotten back and taken up a watch. No. He had _assumed._ He had been tired and upset and _sloppy._

“The funny thing about being awake so long, when previously every moment of attempted rest was interrupted by screaming night terrors,” Wilde says dryly. “Is that even if you want to go to sleep very, very badly, your brain might have a hard time letting you relax enough to do so. It might, in fact, jerk one awake in a panic every time they start to drop off.”

Grizzop lands with an exasperated sigh and walks over to the door of the cell. “All right. I’m probably going to regret asking this, but do you want some help getting to sleep?”

“Why?”

Grizzop blinks. “Why what?”

“You’ve already done what anyone would consider their due diligence,” Wilde says. “I’ll _have_ to stay asleep eventually, so why do anything extra? You don’t even like me.”

Grizzop thumps his head against the bars. “ _Whether I like you or not has nothing to do with it_ ,” Grizzop hisses through gritted teeth. “And thank Artemis it doesn’t because you’re downright _infuriating_. Just because I don’t like you doesn’t mean I want to see you suffer.” Grizzop closes his eyes and sees Wilde face down at his desk, blood pooling around his head. “Besides, it’s for the good of the pack, yeah? We need you sorted so you can go back to helping us, and so _I_ can go off to Rome and hopefully not get killed trying to save people we care about. So do you want my help or not?”

The silence stretches long enough that Grizzop thinks that perhaps Wilde actually might have fallen asleep on his own, but when Grizzop opens his eyes he sees Wilde looking back at him. Is that… is that sadness Grizzop sees in Wilde’s eyes, or is it simply exhaustion?

“I’m sorry.”

Grizzop blinks, confused. “For?”

“For not addressing something sooner,” Wilde says with a sigh. “Back in Cairo, you inferred that I had only referred to you as _they_ or… or _it._ ” Wilde grimaces as he says _it_ , as if the word tastes bad. “My response at the time was… rather flippant. To be honest, I truly don’t remember referring to you in any way that could be considered disrespectful. Which doesn’t mean I don’t believe you,” Wilde says quickly. “There’s… there’s a lot I have a hard time recalling at the moment, tired as I am. In any case, I never meant to de-human… de-person you, and if I have done so in the past, I apologize for it now.”

The apology is wordy, but as far as Grizzop can tell, utterly sincere. He nods once. There’s remembering a slight and then there’s holding a grudge. “Thanks. Now that that’s all settled, I’ll ask again. Do you want my help?”

“Please,” Wilde says quietly.

“Right.” Grizzop says as he reaches for the key that’ll unlock the cell door. “Lay on your stomach then.” He brings in his longbow and his quiver full of arrows but leaves them within easy reach, just in case. When he looks up, he sees that Wilde has actually done as he was told.

“Perhaps I should have asked _how_ instead of _why_ ,” Wilde says, and there’s the faintest hint of his trademark smirk on his lips. “I’m not up for anything terribly… vigorous.”

“This isn’t going to be _sexy_ ,” Grizzop says, then gives Wilde a long look. “Wait. You don’t get off on having your wings touched, do you?”

“I…” Wilde blinks slowly, actually seeming to give the question some thought. “I don’t _think_ so. My lovers are usually more focused on other parts of my anatomy, as magnificent as my wings are.”

Grizzop can’t help but roll his eyes. “Right. Well, let me know if that changes. You all right with having me on your back? It’s probably the easiest way to do this.”

“It’s fine,” Wilde says, and the faint hint of good humor that had been underlying his words of a moment before fades away in a sigh. “Anything short of clubbing me unconscious is fine at this point. I just— I’m so tired.”

Grizzop climbs up onto Wilde’s lower back, settling in between his glossy, black wings. “How long _has_ this been going on?” Grizzop asks, smoothing out some of Wilde’s more errant feathers.

Wilde gives a half shrug. “I don’t know. I’d been burning the candle at both ends for some time, as it were. When the nightmares started I thought it was just stress. There are things going on, I— I’m not sure of the shape of it, the scope… but the Cult of Hades, Rome…. that’s just part of it.”

“Well, we’ll get you sorted and then you can work on figuring things out while I work on the parts of the problem that can be solved with arrows,” Grizzop says, working his fingers into Wilde’s feathers proper. They feel the same as Azu’s wings, could be hers except for the size and of course the color.

Underneath him, Wilde exhales like a man who has been holding his breath for a very long time. Grizzop doesn’t stop what he’s doing, but his fingers slow. “Wilde, you okay down there?”

“Yes,” Wilde says softly. There’s a moment of quiet, then a low chuckle. “I haven’t been touched with such care in a long time. I didn’t realize until just now.”

Grizzop, not prepared for this moment of emotional vulnerability, flutters his wings for a brief moment before settling. It’s just as well that Wilde isn’t able to see his face, it feels like he’s blushing. “Yeah, well, just be quiet and enjoy it. Let yourself relax for once.” It’s funny coming from him, he’s barely felt a moment of peace since Prague. There’s so much to be done, and less time every day. He takes a deep breath and tries to focus on the feeling of feathers under his hands.

“Relax. Ha. Yes. Who knows when I’ll get the chance again,” Wilde says. “There’s so much to do, and never enough time.”

Huh. That was something they both agreed on. Fancy that. Grizzop acknowledges Wilde’s statement with an affirmative hum in an attempt to let the conversation die. The faster Wilde stops talking and goes to sleep the sooner Grizzop can try to sleep himself. He isn’t foolish enough to think he’ll sleep _well_ , not with his mind racing and his body clamoring at him to move, to do _something,_ to protect his pack, but he still has to try.

Several quiet moments pass as Grizzop cards his fingers though Wilde’s feathers. A few of the smaller feathers come loose and Grizzop automatically tucks them away in a pocket without thinking about it, the same as he would have done for Vesseek’s feathers, or Azu’s. It’s honestly a wonder that Wilde hasn’t lost more feathers due to stress, considering what the man has been through. Grizzop listens to Wilde’s breathing slow, feels the muscles in his back slowly relax underneath him. He keeps stroking Wilde’s wings as he waits to see if he’ll stay asleep, afraid if he stops what he’s doing too soon then Wilde will wake up. Besides, this is… well, circumstances non-withstanding, it’s kind of nice to be able to do this. Soothing. It makes him think of Vesseek, because everything does tonight, makes him think of a tree and the moon and their first careful explorations of each other. It had only been a few years ago, and Grizzop had felt so young then. He feels so much older now.

Grizzop feels when Wilde wakes again, muscles tense and twitching, the gasp and heave of his breathing. One arm raises up to reach behind him, and Grizzop catches it as gently as he can, feeling Wilde’s pulse running like a rabbit under the moon beneath his fingers. “Wilde, it’s just me. I’m trying to help you sleep, remember?”

The ragged breaths ease somewhat, and when Grizzop lets go of Wilde’s wrist, the man tucks it back against him. “Yes.” The word comes out as an exhausted, frustrated sigh. “It _is_ helping, it’s just…” Wilde hand flutters in a vague gesture.

The fact that Wilde can’t articulate the problem is just yet another sign of how far past exhaustion he is. Grizzop thinks back to his own sleepless nights, his mind anxious, his body refusing to settle. Touch had helped, Vesseek’s strong hands stroking his feathers, grounding him, but also…

“I could tell you a story,” Grizzop offers. For some reason he feels shy when he says it, his ears going back to touch his shoulders. He twitches them, irritated. He’s tired and overemotional, but there’s nothing for it now. “It’s either that or I can sing, but trust me, neither of us want that.”

Wilde lets out the barest huff of a chuckle. “Not secretly a bard of Artemis then?”

“Hey, those exist!” Grizzop tells him. “One of the best hunters I knew had a crossbow that was also a violin…”

Grizzop isn’t sure when Wilde falls back to sleep again. He’s not even aware when he falls asleep himself, resurfacing from the dreamless depths to the feeling of feathers underneath him. There’s a moment where Grizzop breathes a sigh of relief, burrowing a little bit closer into that warmth before he realizes that the wings are the wrong size, the feathers the wrong texture, that it’s not Vesseek underneath him, that the events of the past few days haven’t all been a terrible dream. He sits up with a furious flapping of wings that has him halfway to the ceiling before he halts, hovering.

Wilde rolls over in his sleep, skin still too pale and the shadows under his eyes still too dark, but his expression is one of peace, of easy slumber. Grizzop feels something warm stir in his chest at that as he lands, as he leaves the cell, his movements so quiet that they don’t wake Wilde at all. Pride, probably, pride at a job well done and nothing more, because he doesn’t have _time_ for anything else, not now with the weak light of dawn coming in through the cell’s tiny window. There are too many things to be done today, and whatever else he may or may not be feeling can wait.

Grizzop doesn’t know, of course, doesn’t know that just over eighteen months from now he’ll be staring at a completely different Wilde, feeling the loss of someone who might have grown to be pack. And _that_ Grizzop, the one looking at Wilde through an entirely different set of bars, won’t know how close he’ll end up growing to the Wilde that has changed, that has been made sharper by battle and betrayal. All of that is both far away and close at hand, but he doesn’t know that either as he leaves the temple of Artemis, as he looks up at the dawn sky. The sun is rising but the moon is still visible, a pale and perfect crescent.

“Please let my pack be all right,” Grizzop prays. “And…” He rises into the air, his wings humming loudly over the empty streets. “And watch over Wilde too. He needs it.”

There is no answer, just the warmth in his chest and the rush of his thoughts, nearly as fast as the beating of his wings. A moment later he’s an arrow in flight, speeding off towards an adventure and a future he can’t even begin to imagine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grizzop's wings are based off of those of the Calliope Hummingbird, because those were the deepest green I could find when I went looking. Vesseek's wings are based off of the Grey-backed Shrike. 
> 
> If I had wings I'd totally stim flap them I am sure, instead I'm mostly a finger snapper, and I enjoy smooth textures over rough ones, but I felt that rougher textures suited Grizzop more for some reason.


	5. Azu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love lifts us up where we belong. At least in Azu's case it does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, this was the first chapter I started writing when I came up with the idea for this AU, then put it aside to start off with Sasha instead.

Azu doesn’t know she was born with the feathered wings of a swan. She knows they are not the angled wings of the cormorants and the cranes that fish in the rivers. Nor are they like the wings of the hawks that swoop down on their prey from the crags of the mountain. Her wings are large and the feathers white, that is what she knows.

She tries to fly, as most winged children do. She falls, again, as most winged children do. She runs to her mother, who bandages her skinned knees and washes the mountain dust from Azu’s feathers with large, gentle hands.

“Why can’t I fly?” Azu asks her mother as she wipes away the tears from her dirt streaked face. “I try so hard!”

“I do not know,” Azu’s mother says gently. “It is a rare thing to be graced with wings, and somehow rarer still for those born with them to achieve flight. An old, forgotten magic perhaps, slowly fading from the world.”

Her mother cups Azu’s cheek with one hand and Azu leans into the touch even as she frowns. It doesn’t seem fair somehow, that hard work will not make what she wants be so. She has been taught all her young life that hard work yields results, the success of the family farm proof of that. So why shouldn’t her efforts day after day pay off now?

“Keep trying,” her mother tells her. “Keep trying, but take care.”

———

There are two murals in the vigil chamber of the seminary. One of them is, of course, Aphrodite rising from the sea in a clamshell, the same mural that graces the entryway of the seminary. It’s a beautiful work, of course it is, but it’s not the mural Azu kneels in front of for her paladin’s vigil.

There is another mural, just as beautiful. In it the goddess is sitting by a lake, shaded by both apple and pomegranate trees as sparrows and doves fly around her, surrounded by roses and myrtle. There is a swan, white and long necked and elegant, laying their head in the goddess’s lap, Aphrodite’s hand resting gently on the bird’s feathered back. It’s in front of this mural that Azu has been kneeling since sunset, praying, her offerings laid out in front of her. There are apples that Azu picked from the orchard, red and round, free of blemish. There are roses from a bush in the gardens that Azu had tended, the petals a sunset of color, pink and orange and yellow. The real offering is Azu herself of course, her loyalty and her love, her devotion and dedication, but the gifts are traditional.

Azu pauses between prayers to reflect, her gaze still focused on the mural, on the resting swan, imagining the goddess’s gentle touch. She ruffles her wings slightly, feeling them glide over the pink silk of her robes. She hadn’t even known what a swan was until she had encountered them swimming in the pools of the meditation gardens here. They are beautiful birds, but also strong and fierce, especially when protecting their young. Azu is honored to have wings that mirror such a creature as that. She cannot fly as they do, but that lack has hardly been missed during her time at seminary.

There has been so much to do on the ground that her thoughts about the sky have been distant. She has learned how to heal, which is more than laying on hands, more than prayers, though she has done her fair share of both. She has learned how the body works, muscles and organs and bone, how to keep a person together and alive without the use of magic. She has learned about afflictions of the mind and spirit, those whose symptoms may be eased by the use of certain herbs, by conversation and a sympathetic ear. She is good at those things, at least she feels she is, hopes she is, even if her instructors seem put off by her joyous enthusiasm in contrast to the more sedate novices she is surrounded by.

It is not just healing that Azu has learned, has been drawn to, though it is what she takes the most joy in doing. She has learned to fight as well, to put the strength of her body to use to protect others when healing hands and soothing words aren’t enough. It is true that one of the tenants of Aphrodite is to do no more harm than necessary, but it is also a truth that sometimes harm _is_ necessary. The wounds Azu inflicts on the training dummies in the courtyard are clean and precise, and she makes sure that the edge of her ax is always as sharp as it can be.

Azu tries her hardest not to fidget as the night wears on, alternating whispered prayers with silent reflection. There’s no risk of her falling asleep, not as excited and nervous as she is. There are stories among the younger novices, tales of those who sleep through the goddess’s blessing and most atone for their lack of fortitude before the goddess will grant them her gifts, but Azu has always doubted the truth of those tales. Perhaps it’s because the path Azu had chosen had started with a dream about Aphrodite, a dream of warmth and light that had come to her when she was sleeping after a long day of work. The love of the goddess is as constant as the rising and the setting of the sun, and Azu does not believe that Aphrodite would truly hold it against anyone if they managed to fall asleep during their vigil.

Azu is thinking about the mountains that are her home, about her family, about the dream that had lead her heart down the path to where she is now when the light begins to fill the chamber she kneels in. She doesn’t have to look up at the window to know that it’s not the light of dawn. It’s too early for that, and dawn’s first light has never been so warm, never brought the smell of apples and roses with it, never filled her mouth with sweetness like spring honey.

“I pledge myself to you,” Azu says softly, and the tears that slide down her cheeks are tears of quiet joy. “My body and breath and heart are yours, if you would have them.”

The goddess doesn’t answer in words. Instead, there is a feeling of warmth, of certainty, of _rightness_ that fills Azu up from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, that surrounds her like a full body hug. Acceptance. Love. For now and for always.

————

Azu rarely sleeps alone at the inn these days, not since she’s made it quite clear that her room and her comfort is there for anyone who needs it. It’s as much for her sake as anyone else’s; she still wakes from nightmares about Rome, about what happened there, what almost happened there.

Right after Rome it had been Hamid in her bed most often (for awhile at least, before Zolf, before Wilde, before so many joyous arrangements) his small body tucked up against her much larger one, his wings wrapped around her in a protective hug. Sometimes he too has nightmares about what almost happened in the darkness between planes and she wakes up from her own dark dreams to find him trembling, clawed hands clutching at her nightdress, tears sliding the brass scales that dot his cheeks like freckles. His skin is almost feverishly hot when she kisses them away.

It’s always a surprise when Azu wakes up to Sasha in the morning, even now after their relationship has deepened. The young woman has a room of her own, same as everyone else, but she rarely seems to sleep in it. She’s admitted to sleeping on the roof more than once since the storms have stopped, and there have been several nights when she’s stayed over in Cel’s room while working on some new type of bomb, with literally explosive results on one very memorable occasion. Zolf had sworn he’d once caught her sleeping on the stairway railing like a cat, and Sasha hadn’t denied it.

Azu still remembers the first time she had woken up to find Sasha curled up in the room’s biggest chair, her dark bat wings folded around herself as if in a hug, the scars on her face and neck seeming to glow in the light of the morning sun. Something about the sight had made Azu’s heart ache at the sheer vulnerability of it as she had stared at the sleeping rogue. 

That first morning, Azu had feigned sleep when she had seen Sasha stirring, letting her leave in silence the same way she had come. The second time it had happened, Azu had softly said that the bed was more than big enough for both of them, and Sasha had stammered and blushed before launching herself out the open window and spending the rest of the night on the roof. After that had come a night where there had been a lot of talking about feelings and boundaries and different types of love and ways to show affection and now some mornings Azu wakes to find Sasha curled up next to her under the covers, one hand brushing Azu’s own, the other clutching a dagger under her pillow.

This morning though, this morning it’s Cel in her bed, Azu can tell before she even opens her eyes. Cel always smells of ink from their copious note-taking, of chemicals from their experiments, of electricity, and Azu can’t help but smile as she breathes deeply.

Cel trembles slightly in their sleep, the restless thrum of energy beneath their skin a near constant thing, waking or sleeping. Too many channel vigors, Cel had told Azu once when she had expressed concern. Too many channel vigors and sleepless nights kept awake by a mind that never seems to slow no matter how tired their body becomes. Their wings tremble slightly as well, the dusky brown feathers with their white spots brushing against Azu’s arm. They’re the wings of a burrowing owl, if Azu remembers what Cel had told her yesterday. As she watches, the wings shrink, receding into Cel’s skin, leaving only their back, bare of all except the occasional freckle and the more than occasional scar.

Azu finds herself holding her breath, waiting to see what wings will appear to replace Cel’s old ones. For all that Cel has tried to chart it, to see if they can predict what type of wings will await them each morning, there really is no pattern to it. Bird or insect or beast, as long as Cel has seen them, any sort of wings could appear. Azu hasn’t seen a repeat yet, though given enough time she’s sure it’ll happen.

The new wings unfurl from between Cel’s shoulders like flower petals, sunshine yellow and vibrant pink, trembling gently against Cel’s back. Cel themself shifts, making a sleepy not quite awake sound and rolling onto their stomach before reaching for something underneath their pillow. If this had been Sasha, the object in question would have been a dagger. In Cel’s case, it’s a small notebook with an equally small pen clipped to the front cover. Notebook found, Cel lifts their head, blinking at Azu, the soft pink glow of Azu’s wings reflecting in their eyes.

“It’s early,” Azu says quietly. “We have a few hours yet.”

“Mmmmm.” Cel seems to consider this, yawning, then opens their notebook, eyes half-closed. They must have been working _very_ late before they came to bed if they’re still so groggy now. “Like to record things when they’re—“ Cel yawns again. “When they’re still fresh.” They spread their wings, then crane their neck to look behind them. For a moment their eyes widen, the smile that had been slowly creeping across their face going a little bit sad as they write down something in their notebook.

“Cel? Are you all right?”

“Hmmm?” Cel tucks their notebook back under the pillow and then rolls over to one side so they can look at Azu. “Oh, yeah, no, it’s fine. I’m fine. Just… just a lot of memories there.” Their smile firms up a little, but the tone of their voice is something like wistful. “They were the ones I had longest. My first wings. Well, I mean, _these_ aren’t.” Cel flutters their wings. “Just because they’re the same _type_ doesn’t mean they’re the same _ones._ Mine were a bit dull by the end, and more than a bit beat up. Moth wings on a person are stronger than moth wings on an actual moth, but mine were rather tattered the last time I saw them. And now here they are, the same and yet not.” They take a deep breath, their wings folding to settle against their back once more. “I’d like a hug, please.”

“Of course,” Azu says, opening her arms so that Cel can fold themself into them, but hesitates to close them. “Is it all right to touch your wings?” It’s always been all right before, but these wings seem to be bringing up some complex feelings, and Cel, like Sasha, has their own ways they like to be touched, and their own places that they do not.

“Yes,” Cel says clearly. “They’re going to make you all dusty though.”

“I don’t mind,” Azu tells them. Cel’s wings are soft to the touch, and yet Azu can feel the strength underneath that softness. Her arms and the sheets will be smudged pink and yellow later and it’ll remind Azu of the roses she offered to Aphrodite. Now though she just concentrates on the feeling of Cel in her arms.

“It’s a myth that if you touch a moth’s wings that they’ll be unable to fly,” Cel tells her. “Moth scales aren’t like bird feathers, you can lose them and still be okay.” They snuggle closer to Azu, close enough that Azu feels the ever constant quiver under Cel’s skin. “I wonder if it was you.”

Azu waits to see if Cel’s going to elaborate on what they meant by that, but quiet breathing gives way to gentle snoring a few moments later. Still, Azu knows Cel well enough to be able to follow some of their leaps in thought, and this one is an easy one to make. Cel has been _very_ focused on their soulmate theory of flight lately, now that the world isn’t ending any faster or more terribly than worlds usually end. Azu _likes_ it as a theory, honestly, the thought of potential unlocked by the persons or people who you were closest to, by their touch. She’s still just not sure among their group who it might have been for her.

Had it happened the first time she had hugged Hamid, her wings surrounding him completely? Had it been Grizzop, grooming her wings after a battle to calm her nerves just as much as his own? Had it been Sasha, huddled close to Azu’s side to block out the chill of Rome’s shadows? Or had it been the touch of the divine and not a soulmate at all who had given her flight when she needed it most, down in the twisting, warping dark? She doesn’t know, and she had said as much to Cel, the first time they had told her their theory.

_“It could have been all of them,”_ Cel had said. _“Or it could have been because of your goddess, or it could have been something else entirely! The exciting part is trying to figure it out!”_

For Cel that’s true, Azu know this. There is nothing Cel loves more than spending hours trying to puzzle out the solutions to problems, the answers to questions, untangling mysteries. Azu herself is curious about the answer, but she also would be content in never truly knowing. She had been able to save people she loved, and to her, that was all that mattered.

————

Even later, when everyone is safe and she’s had time to think about it, Azu still won’t know how Grizzop’s hand had slipped from hers. One moment it had been there, so small in her hand, but present, solid, _real._ And then suddenly it had not, and Azu’s hand, so large, had been closed around nothing at all. She’ll have nightmares about that moment for the rest of her life, along with so many other moments from Rome, its darkness casting long shadows. But that is later. In the now, in the twisting dark between planes, Azu’s hand is empty.

Azu gasps as she opens her eyes. All around her, broken only by the glow of Eldarion’s magic, is darkness, and in the darkness are things that her eyes try to perceive as colors, things that her mind cannot interpret, that cause her stomach to roil and her head to erupt in agony. She makes herself look down, or at least in the direction she thinks of as down, her empty hand reaching out. Far away, too far for her reaching fingers, she can see something grey like Grizzop’s skin, something green and shining like his wings.

Azu doesn’t think about what she does next. Emeka will be angry with her later, and both of them will know that the anger comes from a place of love, that Emeka will be thankful that his sister is alive to be yelled at, even as Azu is thankful that her brother is alive and can be upset with her. She wrenches herself free from Emeka’s grip, intent on Grizzop, not looking away from him even as pain makes her want to squeeze her eyes shut. She thinks she hears Emeka shout her name, feels the brush of fingertips against her arm, and then she’s falling.

It’s like falling in a nightmare, endless, sometimes too fast, sometimes so slow she’s not even sure she’s moving at all. It feels like parts of her are being stretched, her feet miles away from her legs, each finger longer than her body but still somehow not long enough to catch Grizzop, who is sometimes closer, sometimes even further away. His lips are moving but their sound doesn’t reach her even as the humming of his wings does. His frantic flapping doesn’t seem to do anything to control the direction he moves in, doesn’t seem to bring him any closer to her. It’s a twisting of space that does that.

One moment Grizzop is terribly far, the grey of his skin and the color of his breastplate so distant that Azu might only be hopefully imagining that she sees it, the next he is in front of her, tears of pain streaming down his face as he calls out her name. She reaches out, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him tight against her chest with one arm in something that could almost be a hug. The memory of holding him in Cairo comes to her mind, the day they had first met, how he had shouted at her to put him down. He’s shouting something now, wings thrumming against her armor, and it takes her a moment to force herself to loosen her grip ever so slightly, to hear what he’s saying.

“Sasha!” Grizzop screams, his ears flat against his head. “We have to find Sasha! She was falling!”

Azu’s heart lurches in her chest. Oh no. No, not her too. Azu looks wildly around her, searching for Sasha’s black wings, her dark coat, her pale skin against the swirling not-colors of this terrible place. For a moment she thinks she sees the raggedy patch of Sasha’s white hair far below her, but in the space between one blink and the next it disappears.

Azu has just enough time to draw in a breath, to prepare to scream Sasha’s name loud enough that the gods themselves will hear it, before something slams into her from above. She grabs it without thinking, feels leather under her hand. Sasha’s coat. Sasha. Sasha half curled in on herself, eyes shut tight. Sasha, who never cries, crying. Sasha, who bears her pain silently, making a high, lost sound in the back of her throat. Azu pulls her close as well, her scream turning into a sob of relief.

All three of them are falling now, falling fast, falling together but still falling. Above Azu, the glow of Eldarion’s magic is distant and faint. Soon their friends and loved ones will be gone, gone without them while the three of them fall together in the dark.

_No._ Azu feels a calm fall over her, a stillness in which all she can hear are her own thoughts. _No, I will not lose them. I will not lose_ ** _anyone._**

The place in Azu’s heart which has felt empty and cold since she’d arrived in Rome fills with a sudden, blazing heat, warmth and light and _love_ that flows though Azu like blood. Azu’s tears are tears of joy as she spreads her wings, and there is no doubt that they will take her where she needs to go.

Azu’s first flight is agony. The space between planes is full of strange currents that pull at them, try to drag her down into the deeper darkness, and she strains against them, fighting for every inch with clenched teeth, her pounding heart a prayer as she holds two of the people she loves in her arms so tightly that there will be bruises later. She will not let them go, not even as the pain causes her muscles to feel trembly and weak, even as her tear blurred vision goes grey at the edges, as her breath turns into a scream. She will not let go, she will not pass out, she will not, she will _not_ —

Emeka’s hand grabs her armor an instant before the darkness gives way to light, before her feet land on solid ground. She staggers, going to her knees, panting as she bows her head. Grizzop squirms out from under one arm while in the other, Sasha stirs, her eyes fluttering open.

“Is everyone all right?” Hamid calls out. “Is everyone here?”

“Oh wow, everyone is back! This is great, really great, much better than expected. A little late maybe, but everyone is here, yes?” Einstein’s voice is a mix of curiosity and caution.

“You’re glowing,” Sasha mumbles softly as everyone’s voices mix together.

Azu shakes her head. She can’t be glowing, her armor has barely been glowing since she entered Rome. Except… except the light shining in Sasha’s eyes is most definitely pink.

“Oh _wicked_ ,” Azu hears Ed say. When she raises her head to look at him, he’s grinning back at her. His white swan wings are different from hers, touched with gold and shining gently, as if sunlight were caught in his feathers. His eyes too reflect a pink glow. “We practically match now!”

Azu spreads her wings, hissing at the ache, and turns her head to look. Sure enough, her white feathers now glow a soft pink. The color of sunrises and sunsets. The color of roses. The color of love.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m [angel-ascending](http://angel-ascending.tumblr.com) over on Tumblr and [angel_in_ink](http://twitter.com/angel_in_ink) over on Twitter if y’all want to stop by and say hi!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Falling, with Style](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25599694) by [kristsune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristsune/pseuds/kristsune)




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